Pointless Box Canyon Season 2
by vinjhup
Summary: Season 2 of this weird fanfic thingie I'm writing. Whatever, have fun.
1. Episode 1

**Episode 1: Plan A, B, 3 and...Purple**

Morino woke up in a blurry haze. He had no idea where he was and the last thing he remembered was laying on the floor of what he assumed was a giant cave. As far as he could tell he hadn't gotten out of the cave...yet. Something was wrong though. This piece of rock felt...different than the one had landed on. Which didn't make much sense to begin with because the entire goddamn cave looked the same.

He slowly picked himself up off the ground. His head as well as the rest of his body still ached. But not as much as it did when he crashed through the canyon. He looked around and noticed that the rock he was sleeping on ended a couple feet away from his right. He looked out over the rock which was apparently much higher up than he expected. In fact he didn't expect it to be high up at all.

"I see you're finally awake." said a voice from behind him.

Morino turned around to see a man in green armor seated next to an open fire. He was cooking some unidentifiable meat on a stick.

His mind was going overload trying to find out who the hell this man was, "I feel like I know you for some reason..."

The man chuckled, "I see that fall must have jogged your memory a bit. My name is-"

"Oh wait! I think I got it now!" Morino interrupted, "It's, uh...it's...it's Jerome right?"

The man frowned, "No...my name is Jeronimus."

"Hmm...well that's too long so I'm just going to keep calling you Jerome."

"Well you do what you must but I'm sure that name won't become permanent." said Jerome.

"What the hell are you cooking anyway?" asked Morino.

Jerome lifted the meat out of the fire and shrugged, "I have no idea what this animal is, but it's delicious. Honestly you'd think after all the time I would learn what this animal is but no. It's naked basically so that means there's no need to skin it. All I need to do is put it on a stick and wait for it to cook. Here, try it."

He threw the stick over to Morino who clumsily caught the piece of meat. Of course it was still hot from the fire and so he fumbled around a bit until he finally clutched the stick of meat on the side that wasn't burning hot to the touch. He brought the stick to his face and smelled it. It didn't smell any different from any other kind of cooked meat and so he hesitantly brought it to his lips and took a bite. Luckily it had cooled down enough for him to actually savor it and he found that it didn't exactly taste any different from regular cooked meat either.

"It's good." Morino finally said with his mouth still full. He was going to throw it back to Jerome but he put one of his hands up.

"No that's alright. The other soldier should be back soon with some more meat for us to cook."

"The other soldier?" Morino asked as he took another bite.

"Yes. Hal Jordan was his name if I remember correctly."

From below them came the sound of what seemed like someone climbing up the plateau they had been sitting on. After a couple of minutes a soldier in purple armor had made his way up the rock. A large bloody sack was strewn across his shoulder.

"Phew! These things aren't exactly hard to kill but they're a bitch to deal with in large groups." Hal Jordan said.

He threw the sack over to Jerome who looked inside and smiled, "We're gonna eat like kings tonight!"

"Oh which reminds me, I'm sure you're gonna want this back." Hal Jordan said as he reached for something on his hip. On his hip dangled some sort of metallic handle. Like a sword handle of some sorts. He threw it over at Jerome who grabbed it carefully.

"Be careful with that! If it was pointed the wrong way it might have killed me."

Hal Jordan shrugged and finally looked over to where Morino was sitting, "Well I see you're finally awake."

Over at Blue Base things were fairly quiet. Too quiet actually. There was no activity on the outside of the base, but the inside was an entirely different story. Elsa and Kinofpumps were both sitting on chairs as Hikari Oni looked over at them, a chalkboard they had somehow acquired was set behind them with random words and illustrations on it.

"Okay so here's the plan." Hikari Oni said, "what we're going to have to do is...dammit Duck! Erase whatever the hell all this shit is!"

"Well I'm sorry! But you didn't exactly let me help you with _your _plan so I decided to make my own."

"Oh really now?" Hikari Oni crossed her arms, "Well why don't you walk us through this plan of yours?"

Duck picked up the chalk once again, "It's real simple. See what we're going to do is walk over to Red Base and ask for their help with getting Hal Jordan out of the hole."

The three soldiers looked at Duck. Their facial expressions ranged from amazement, to shock, to confusion and this jumbled up mess of all three at once.

"Continue." Elsa spoke finally.

"Well! Once they agree, and they totally will because our convincing skills are _that _amazing, we'll lead them to the hole where one of us will dangle from the edge. Then someone will grab their arms and hold them as tightly as possible as they themselves are lowered into the hole. Then someone else grabs that person's feet as tightly as possible as they are lowered into the hole themselves and this goes on and on until the first person finally reaches the end of the hole!"

The soldiers continued to stare at Duck for an uncomfortably long time. The staring continued for hours but in reality it was probably only for about five seconds.

Kinofpumps cleared his throat, "So Hikari Oni what was _your _plan?" 

"That plan was so stupid I completely forgot what mine was."


	2. Episode 2

**Episode 2: Fight Club (dammit I broke the first two rules)**

Spacecati looked down into the hole where Morino's body was supposed to be.

"Hey Morino?! You down there buddy?! If you are could you say, like, anything?! Anything at all so we know you're not dead!"

Silence was the only response given. After a few seconds Spacecati finally gave up and picked himself up from the hole.

He walked over to the other four soldiers who were busy conversing with one another. Well three of them were. The fourth soldier, Miguel, was busy picking up tires for some reason.

"Just set them over here Miguel, we need something for little Miss Cupcakes here to sit on." said Sergeant Anna.

"Jag är säker på att det finns bättre användningsområden för mig än att plocka upp tunga saker." (I'm sure there are better uses for me than picking up heavy things.)

"Oh come on now Sarge." said Cupcakes still leaning on her shoulder, "You know I can't exactly walk on my own two feet right now."

"I'll be the judge of that." Harmy added.

Miguel stacked two tires down behind Cupcakes and Anna pushed him back towards them. She brushed off her shoulder that he was leaning on.

"I'm just gonna go...take a walk or something. Have fun being tended to, pansy." Anna said as she walked away.

"Ooh! I'll come with you!" Spacecati exclaimed.

"No you're not!"

"Too late!"

Cupcakes pouted at the back of his commanding officer as Harmy kneeled down next to his injured foot.

Harmy put his foot on his knee, "Alright let's see what we're dealing with here."

He carefully removed the piece of armor on his foot and Cupcakes winced and looked away, "Ahh, I can't look. Tell me Doc does it look bad? Will you have to amputate? Am I gonna die?"

Harmy sighed, "No one dies from a bullet wound to the foot. At least no one that I know of. As for your foot," he looked at his foot carefully. The bandage needed changing obviously and so he peeled it off to take a closer look and grimaced. "It looks...fine."

"Du tvekade." (You hesitated.)

"Oh, good. I'm gonna live! But am I gonna walk again?"

"Of course you're gonna walk again. Well I mean you may have a slight _limp _but I'm sure it'll be fine."

"What was that last part?"

"Nothing important. Just stay here while I go get a new bandage for your foot."

Cupcakes nodded and looked over at Miguel who stood with his arms crossed looking, or at least he thought he was looking at him (the helmet made it hard to tell), down at him.

"När du dör jag tar din rustning." (When you die I'm taking your armor.)

Cupcakes smiled, "Thanks for looking out for me Miguel."

"Varför i helvete är du rosa ändå?" (Why the hell are you pink anyway?)

"Alright I'm back." said Harmy from behind them.

He knelt back down towards Cupcakes' injured foot and proceeded to get to work. He unwrapped the old bandage and Cupcakes once again looked away.

"Ahh god I can't stand the sight of blood, just let me know when it's over."

Harmy said nothing and continued to work. He looked at his terrible stitching job and pouted. He never really did learn how to properly stitch up a wound. At least he could take pride in his bandaging work...for the most part. In a few seconds he got the fresh bandage on the foot and put the piece of armor back in place.

"Alright, I'm done. Now we just need to see how well you can walk."

"Do I _have _to?!"

"Yes, you do. Now come on stop being a big baby and try and get up."

"Hej, kanske du vill se här." (Hey, you might wanna see this.)

"What was that, Miguel?" Cupcakes said.

Miguel pointed out towards the canyon and both Harmy and Spacecati looked over in his direction and noticed a certain specialist near them as well as a yellow soldier trailing close behind.

The specialist, Sloth, nervously cleared her throat, "Umm...hey. You guys in need of a specialist?"

Morino took another bite out of this mystery cave meat on a stick. It tasted like meat, didn't exactly look like meat though. Still, as long as he didn't look at it while eating it was fine.

"So how long have you been down here exactly?" he asked with his mouth sem-full.

Jerome swallowed before answering, "Oh _that_ is a long story. I may tell you someday but not now. For now just know that I have been down here for awhile."

Morino looked over at Hal Jordan who was busy devouring his third stick of mystery meat, "And how long have _you _been down here?"

Hal Jordan shrugged, "Hell if I know. Days? Weeks? All I know is I was walking through a cave with your flag and I fell down this hole. Jeronimus here helped me back on my feet and now I'm here eating...whatever this is."

"Wait, _you're _the one that took our flag?!"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, yeah. The flag. It's down there somewhere, haven't found it. It's a pretty long story that's unimportant to you, just know that when I get out of here I'm taking your flag with me."

Morino shot up, "Not if I have anything to say about it. Jerome! You've been here awhile, where is it?!"

Jerome shrugged, "This is a large and vast cave. I have yet to explore the entire place. The only reason I know how to go back here is because this plateau can be seen from so far away."

"Well I need to get out of here now alright? And I'm taking our flag with me. Then we're taking the rest of your buddies out, too."

"Hey man, why the hostility? I took the flag that you guys never use, what seems to be the problem here?"

"Because, it's...it's the flag, alright? It's just...it's the _flag._ Don't fucking question it. Also, when you _took _our flag you went ahead and sent a specialist on us just to add injury to insult. I can't forgive you for that."

Hal Jordan got up as well, "Wait what?! A specialist?! You mean Kinofpumps? He's not a fucking specialist he just changed the color of his armor to black."

"You mean that specialist wasn't a specialist?! That's fucking great. It was bad enough I got hit by a girl now it turns out she's also just another soldier like me."

"Wait what? Kinofpumps isn't a girl."

"What?!"

"Alright alright, settle down you two." said Jerome, trying to ease the tension. He took another bite from his mystery meat before getting up as well.

"Now it seems like there's some bad blood between both your teams and from you two specifically and petty words aren't going to solve this so I'll tell you what's gonna happen here."

Both of the soldiers looked at him waiting for a reply.

Jerome smiled, "You two are going to fight. Right now."


	3. Episode 3

**Episode 3: Search and Rescue**

The Blue Base storage room was somehow fairly large and filled with useless stuff they never actually used ever. There was a box of rubber duckies in there, a couple metal rods used for...something, there was even an old wooden barrel that was doing nothing but collecting dust.

"...and yet I can't find a fucking rope."

The voice belonged to an exasperated Kinofpumps who had spent a good half hour searching through this entire storage room and, so far, had no luck. He was busy looking through shelves, boxes, anything and everything but he couldn't find a rope.

"Godfuckingdammit!" he exclaimed as he went through another random box, "We have a box dedicated to fucking Christmas decorations but we don't have a fucking rope?! The sun never sets here how the hell are we supposed to know when it's fucking Christmas?!"

He picked himself up from the box and kicked it in anger.

"Woah, am I interrupting something?"

Kinofpumps turned around and saw Hikari Oni standing in the doorway of the storage room, her arms crossed and with a look of confusion aimed towards him.

"Oh, it's just you...what do you want?"

"I heard noises coming from in here and wanted to check it out. What the hell are you doing here anyway?"

Kinofpumps continued searching through another shelf, "I am trying...to find...a goddamn rope."

Hikari Oni walked over towards him, "A rope? What for?"

"Dammit, there's nothing here either! What was that?"

Kinofpumps walked over to another shelf and Hikari Oni followed, "I said why were you looking for a rope?"

"I'm going down there. Down that hole. I need to find Hal Jordan and bring him back."

"By yourself?"

He continued to search through the shelf, hands moving up and down, shuffling through all of the useless garbage. There was a broken bobblehead in here. Why?

"Oh fucking finally!" his hands emerged from inside a shelf and brought a long bundled rope, "and yes by myself. Now if you excuse me."

Kinofpumps tried to move past Hikari Oni but she stepped in front of him in order to stop him, "There's no way Elsa's going to allow you to go alone, you know that right?"

"Well tough luck, she'll probably understand."

Kinofpumps sidestepped her in order to get away but he didn't get very far before he felt a hand pull him back from going any further.

Hikari Oni sighed, "Why are you doing this? Do you feel responsible for Hal Jordan down that hole?"

"No I don't. I know it was his fault for falling down there in the first place but that doesn't mean he deserves to stay down there. And right now Elsa's too busy moping about losing her best friend and Duck is, well...I don't trust Duck with anything. So yeah, I'm going by myself. Now could you let me go now?"

Hikari Oni pushed him away from her and he stumbled forward, "You're not going alone because I'm coming with you. Now come on, lead the way."

Kinofpumps turned and raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure? Elsa's not gonna be happy with two more soldiers just up and leaving the base."

"Ah I'm sure she'll be fine. Duck can keep her company. Now come on, let's go."

Over at Red Base trouble seemed to be brewing. Sloth had finally returned with a groggy Private Bubbles in tow. She looked sheepishly at the three soldiers staring at her in disbelief. Or at least one of them. One was busy rubbing his foot and looking confused and another was wearing a helmet, she also obviously didn't recognize this new soldier.

Harmy was the first to respond to her question with another question, "What the hell are you doing back here?!"

"Look I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now but I can assure you-"

"What the hell are you doing back here?!"

All of the soldiers looked to see Spacecati and Sergeant Anna coming back from their walk. Sergeant Anna, it seems, was the person who yelled as her cheeks were red and her face was fueled with anger. She hurriedly made her way to Sloth and aimed her shotgun right at her face.

Sloth raised her hands in defeat, "Woah now! Just calm down, alright? I can explain why I'm here. I can explain _everything_. Just...put the gun down."

"No!" Anna pushed the shotgun closer towards Sloth's face, "Start speaking now or so help me I will shoot your face right off!"

Sloth sighed, "Fine. I was sent here by the Blue Team Headquarters to take you guys out. I was just doing my job, alright?"

"Doing your job?! We lost a soldier because of you!" Spacecati spoke up from behind Sergeant Anna. He was just as angry as she was.

"Wait what?! What are you..." Sloth looked around and noticed a certain orange soldier was missing, "there was another soldier with you. Where is he now?!"

Sergeant Anna pressed the gun even closer towards Sloth's face, "That doesn't matter right now. Just keep talking, why are you here now?!"

"Har ni ens ihåg att sätta kulor i det?" (Did you even remember to put bullets in there?)

"Hush, Miguel! Now you! Keep talking."

"Look I don't want to get too personal. Just know that the commanding officer at Blue Base hates my guts and now I have nowhere else to go. I brought your missing soldier back as a peace offering and I'm here to do anything you guys need me to do."

"Wait if your job here is done why don't you just head back to HQ?" Harmy asked.

"That's...look that's not important right now. I'm here to ask for forgiveness and to also offer my service. Anything you need me to do I'll do it, as long as you allow me to stay at your base."

The standoff was tense as Anna kept the shotgun pointed at Sloth's face. Neither person said a word for the longest time. The anger stayed on Anna's face as the absolute terror stayed on Sloth's. But there was something else there as well. It looked...it looked like guilt. And also loneliness. And maybe Anna picked up on that or maybe her arm hurt from aiming a shotgun she had no experience holding for too long but she suddenly lowered the gun away from Sloth's face. Her face softened down to a look of irritation. Sloth's hands lowered as well, albeit much slower and much more cautiously.

Anna quickly turned and walked away from her, "We have no use for you right now but you can stay in our base until we do. Spacecati, show her to Morino's old bed."

Spacecati was surprised, "But ma'am doesn't that seem a bit disrespectful?"

Anna looked at him with a look that downright terrified him, "Are you questioning my orders, Private?"

"N-no, ma'am."

She pushed a finger into his chest, "Then _show her _to Morino's old bed. _Now!_"

"Right away!"

Anna walked away from the rest of the soldiers who looked equally as terrified as Spacecati, who had begun to walk back towards the base, did. Sloth followed him inside the base leaving the other four soldiers to wonder what the hell just happened.

Bubbles cleared his throat, "I'm back by the way."

Under the canyon stood three other soldiers. Two of were staring daggers at each other, standing on opposite sides of a plateau that made its presence known across the entire cave. From any point in this large, vast, incredibly dull and gray cave, you could see this plateau very clearly. The bonfire at the top lit it up like a large square torch and a green soldier stood behind it, his upper body illuminated by the fire.

Hal Jordan cracked his knuckles in preparation for the fight and Morino threw some practice punches into the air in front of him.

"So...when does this fight end anyway?" Hal Jordan asked.

Jerome smiled, "I guess it would end when someone yields."

Morino continued throwing punches into the air but soon stopped in order to conserve energy, "So basically who ever says they give up first?"

"Exactly. Now are you both ready?"

"When I'm done with you, you won't even be able to speak let alone say you give up." Hal Jordan spoke as one more parting shot.

Morino scowled but that soon changed into a cocky smirk, "Bring it."

Jerome let out a throaty chuckle, "Now that's what I want to see! Now...begin!"

Without a moment's hesitation both soldiers made their way towards each other, fists clenched and faces plastered with looks of determination and pride.


	4. Episode 4

**Episode 4: The Storage Room King**

Apart from a couple blemishes on either side, the blue and red sides of the canyon looked completely similar. In fact if the bases weren't colored at all it would have been hard to tell which side was which. There was one thing that the Red side had that the Blue side didn't. And that was the tree. Yes, the same tree that Duck gawks over and always talks about. It was fairly small but it was able to at least provide shade for one person, which Sergeant Anna used to her advantage. She leaned back on the trunk of the tree, relishing in the shade it provided. The leaves and branches were incredibly abundant somehow even though they never actually cared for it ever.

She lay back with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, it was obvious she didn't want to be disturbed. And it was obvious that Bubbles didn't get the memo.

Anna heard shuffling of feet and spoke up, "If you come any closer whoever you are I am going to have to shoot you. I don't want to be disturbed right now."

Bubbles hesitated for a moment but tested his luck and kept on moving anyway.

Anna grunted at his continued advance and reached for her shotgun which caused Bubbles to finally stop and put his hands up to calm Anna, "Woah woah, alright I'll stop."

She opened one eye, "Oh it's just you. What the hell do you want Bubbles can't you see I'm buy thinking?"

Bubbles looked around, "Thinking about...what exactly?"

"_What _do you want?!"

Obviously he didn't expect this sudden outburst and was almost taken aback, but Bubbles regained his composure and cleared his throat, "I just think you were a bit too hard on the specialist is all and I think you should give her a chance."

Anna pouted, "Did you, uh...did you forget the whole part about her taking us all out and keeping you hostage? She can't be trusted."

"And I'm saying that she _can _be."

Anna finally pulled herself up from the tree and looked into Bubble's face. She squinted and spoke slowly, "What...did she tell you?"

Bubbles raised his hands in mock surrender, "Nothing. I'm serious she didn't tell me anything at all. I woke up, she dropped me and we walked back here in silence."

"Bullshit! Then why are you so high on her?! What makes you think we can just up and trust her after what she did to us?!"

"Because she wants to stay here instead of going back to HQ. Look it's pretty obvious that she and the Blue Base CO have some major beef and I think we should take advantage of that."

"That's-" Anna paused and turned away from Bubbles. She paced back and forth in front of the tree and in front of a rather confused Bubbles. She was lost in deep thought, thinking about that last sentence that he had said. They _should _take advantage of this opportunity. They had the advantage, they had a specialist with some sort of past relationship with the Blue commander. But how? How could they go about doing this? They needed a plan of attack, a plan of revenge. Revenge! That's it!

Anna walked back up to Bubbles and grabbed his arms, her face was lit up as if she finally had an excellent idea, "I just came up with an _excellent _idea! Come on let's go back to the base."

She practically dragged Bubbles back towards the base, "What about your shotgun?!"

Blue Base was eerily quiet, with Kinofpumps and Hikari Oni making their way towards the cave that left only Duck and Elsa inside the base. Duck had went to investigate the noises he heard come from this direction but seeing as he had no idea how to get around the base it took him awhile to find where the noise was actually coming from. Even now he wasn't entirely sure he was in the right place but he noticed the door to the storage room was open and decided to take a look around inside.

"Umm...guys? You in here?" he asked into the room to no response. He kept looking anyway. There was something about this room that intrigued him. Maybe it was the abundance of useless items, maybe it was just because this was a room he had never seen or explored before. Or maybe it was because-

"Ooh, what's this?!"

Duck had been searching through one of the shelves and came across a skinny rectangular box with some sort of cover. Was this...was this a DVD? What was it doing here? Duck studied the DVD cover carefully. It was a movie he had never seen before. Then again it was years since anyone had ever seen a DVD anyway. They had basically been obsolete for a very long time but somehow he had found one.

Duck smiled, "Ooh I bet Elsa is gonna love this!"

He looked around the room a little bit more to see what he could find. Apart from the DVD he had also stumbled upon the box of rubber duckies which he studied carefully, "Well I'm sure this is nothing what a duck looks like. I assume they look a lot like me except...less rubber."

He also found large boxes filled with old, rusted pots and pans, a faded cardboard cutout of a palm tree, a plastic flamingo and for some reason a chalkboard. Duck was ecstatic at all these treasures and stayed in the room as an idea formed in his head, completely forgetting why he was here in the first place.

A few hours later Elsa had also found the open storage room and decided to peer inside. She had noticed the base was awfully quiet and went on the hunt for her subordinates.

"Hey, you guys in here?!" she continued to make her way through the storage room which seemed to have more than a few things missing. She kept making her way towards the back of the storage room and noticed more and mor stuff missing from the shelves.

"I did an inspection of this place a few weeks ago where the hell is everything?!"

She finally made it to the back of the storage room and gasped at what she saw.

"Duck...what the fuck is this?!"

Boxes upon boxes were scattered around everywhere. Two rather sturdy folding tables had been propped up and placed next to each other and they too were surrounded by boxes. Rubber ducks had been scattered all across the table and at the center of it all was a lawn chair which had a cardboard cutout of a palm tree and a plastic flamingo duct taped to the back. And on that chair sat Duck, who wore a dusty blue robe he had found somewhere and had a plastic worn out crown on his head, in his hand was a metal pole with a rubber duck duct taped on it.

In a loud and booming voice Duck spoke, "I AM THE STORAGE ROOM KING!"

"I...I don't...I just..." Elsa sighed and placed her face in her palms aggressively, "Duck, get the fuck down from there."

Duck pointed his scepter at Elsa, "You don't get to talk to the Storage Room King that way! Now kneel, peasant!"

Elsa brought her head up fast at that comment, "_Excuse me?! _What did you just call me, Duck?!"

She quickly made her way up Duck's makeshift throne, "What is the meaning of this?! I am King! This is insubordination I will-"

Elsa quickly snatched his scepter away from him and used it to jab him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain and now he was at eye level with Elsa. She threw the scepter onto the ground and she was seething with anger and exasperation. "Ouch..." was the only thing he could really say.

"Duck, I..." she decided not to pry on whatever was happening here any longer. Chances are she would never understand anyway. "Where are the other two?"

Duck was still doubled over but he was able to look Elsa in the eye, "I don't know. I came in here looking for them and then I saw all this cool stuff and I had this great idea!"

Elsa looked around and frowned, "Great isn't the word I would use to describe whatever this all is." She finally noticed there was something else behind him, "Duck what is that?"

"Hmm?" he turned around to look at the back of his throne, "Oh this? Yeah I actually wanted to show you this. It's an old DVD, you know those things no one watches. I thought we could watch it together."

"Wait you just said no one watches them anymore and-wait we don't even have one of those old TVs how are we supposed to watch this and...is that _me?_"

Elsa snatched the DVD out of Duck's hands and eyed it closely. Sure enough there was a woman on the front with a face that looked incredibly similar to hers. Same nose, same eyes, same everything. She even wore her long platinum blonde braid the same way she did. Although she was wearing a dress that Elsa would never be caught dead in. This was incredibly uncanny.

"Frozen." she said as she read the title of the movie, "This is...Duck! I need you to find a TV in this mess."

Duck saluted, "The Storage Room King is on it! But, uh...could you hand me back my scepter?"

Elsa rolled her eyes and made her way back down the throne and grabbed Duck's scepter, throwing it back at him.

"Meanwhile I should probably find out where these two idiots went off to. With my luck they probably went to that cave to find Private Jordan. Dammit..."

As soon as Elsa left the room, still mumbling to herself, Duck went on the hunt to find a TV.


	5. Episode 5

**Episode 5: Orange Viper, Purple Mountain**

**A/N: Nobody freak out! I've decided to just post all of the episodes on because they're getting pretty damn long. So enjoy...or don't. I'm not the boss of you.**

Both soldiers grunted as the first blows were exchanged in this incredibly epic (not really) fight began. Their fists connected with each other's faces and they both retreated in pain.

"Ahh fuck! That fucking hurt!" Hal Jordan said as he rubbed his cheek and shook off his fist.

Morino grabbed at his nose and checked for blood, "Goddammit I think you broke my fucking nose."

Jerome looked on at the two idiots in front of him clutching their faces and groaning, mumbling incoherently to themselves and sighed, "I was hoping that fight would have dragged on for longer but I guess we'll just have to-"

Hal Jordan turned around and brought his hands up to stop Jerome from speaking, "No! No...I'm still good. It's uh, it's totally nothing I could probably shake this off. No big deal. Look see I'll show you."

Morino raised his head, "How am I supposed to stop a broken nose from bleeding I don't-" All the wind rushed out of him as he felt a fist connect with his gut. He doubled over in pain and Hal Jordan stepped back and clutched at his fist.

"Godfuckingdammit! No one told me that punching someone would hurt so much!"

"Gah, how the fuck do you think _I _feel then?"

Without any type of warning Morino lunged forward and tried to tackle Hal Jordan but was only able to grab onto his legs. This looked to be good enough as he fell forward. He had still been holding onto his fist and so one of his arms was now trapped underneath him. Morino worked as quickly as possible to move up even further and started to pound on Hal Jordan's armor.

"Ahh, what the fuck?! Get off me!"

"Not until you yield!" Morino exclaimed, blood still pouring out of his nose and dripping onto the purple armor under him.

"I swear if you're bleeding on my armor right now." Hal Jordan said from under him, using his free arm to try and shield his unprotected head. With as much strength as he could muster he moved his hips in order to shake Morino off of him and it surprisingly worked. Morino was pushed off of him and Hal Jordan quickly picked himself up off the floor.

He tried to make his way to a downed Morino and raised his foot to kick him but he was able to roll away in time.

"Get back here you son of a bitch!"

"No!"

Morino quickly got up to his feet and moved towards Hal Jordan once again. He brought a fist up and took a wild swing which obviously missed. He took another swing and was greeted with another miss. Hal Jordan took a couple swings himself and missed all of them.

Although it seemed to them that they were mere inches away from each other, in reality they were a lot farther. Their swollen faces and their beat up state had damaged their sense of perception and it seemed like a good time for Jerome to step in. But no, he kept looking on at the sight. In fact the only thing he did was smile, he rather enjoyed these two idiots punching the air in front of them.

"Fucking yield goddammit." Hal Jordan groaned as he swung another fist into the air.

"You yield first." Morino said as he too punched the air. Their legs were wobbly and it wouldn't be long before they finally collapsed. And after a couple more swings and misses they finally did. Oddly enough instead of landing on the floor they landed on each other, their semiconscious bodies were being propped up by each other and so they never exactly touched the floor.

Jerome decided that now it was finally time to intervene and pulled the two soldiers off of each other, "Alright well I see this fight isn't going to go anywhere else anytime soon so I guess I'll just stop the fight here."

"DidIwin?" Hal Jordan mumbled out as he leaned on Jerome's left hand.

"NoyouidiotItotallywon." Morino replied, leaning on Jerome's right.

Jerome sighed, "Neither of you two actually won, in fact it's probably safer to say you both lost."

"BetIlostbetterthanyoudid." said Hal Jordan.

"Quiet. Now I'm gonna drop you slowly and when you finally come to we're gonna talk about what happens next, got that?"

No answer, at least there didn't seem to be any coherent and discernible answers coming from either of them. Jerome let go of them and they dropped onto the floor with a loud thud. He sat by the fire once again and pulled out another animal to roast over it. It would be awhile before they came to.

Harmy, Miguel and Cupcakes found themselves on top of Red Base. Harmy was staring out at the canyon, specifically at Blue Base. Cupcakes still found it hard to stand and resorted to sitting on the edge of the base. Miguel was busy studying the teleporter that Harmy had apparently fixed.

"Den som arbetat med detta teleporter är en idiot." (Whoever worked on this teleporter is an idiot.)

Harmy smiled and gasped, "Did...did you just thank me for the work I did on your teleporter? Well thank you for the kind words Miguel."

"Det finns en hel del trådar här som inte ens till någonting." (There are a lot of wires here that aren't even connected to anything.)

Cupcakes brought his injured foot onto his lap, "So, uh...how long will it be before my foot is completely healed anyway?"

Harmy shrugged.

"That's not very reassuring." Cupcakes said while pouting.

Harmy scoffed, "Ahh, you should be fine. It's just bullet to the foot. That's not a big deal. Just take a couple aspirins and you should be fine."

"Wait what?"

"Oh yeah, people always like to undermine alternative medicine but I find it pretty fascinating and very helpful. Did you know you can get rid of headaches by rubbing aloe vera on your neck?"

"I'm not sure I trust your judgement."

"Shush you. I patched your foot up pretty well, didn't I?"

"Det finns en nyckel i här. Varför finns det en skiftnyckel i här?" (There's a wrench in here. Why is there a wrench in here?)

"See even Miguel agrees. Anyway, you should be fine on your own now. I on the other hand have to make my way over to Blue Base."

Cupcakes scooted back from the edge of the base with a quizzical look on his face, "Wait what?! Why are you helping the Blues?"

"Oh I'm pretty neutral when it comes to this fight which means I need to provide my medical expertise to both sides."

"But you're wearing red."

Harmy pointed at his chestplate, "And white."

"So?"

Harmy shrugged and made his way back down the base, "Anyway I'm sure you guys will be fine now. Those headaches from when Sloth knocked us out should go away and your foot should heal in about 3 or 4..."

"3 or 4...what?"

"Exactly!" he said before he continued his descent down the base.

Cupcakes sighed and looked over at Miguel who was still inspecting and refixing the teleporter, "Well...looks like it's just me and you, Miguel. You know we've never exactly had any one-on-one time. This'll be great. Just me and you, talking about stuff. Wouldn't that be great?!"

"Av alla i denna bas jag hatar dig mest." (Out of everyone in this base I hate you the most.)

"I knew you'd be on board with the idea! So...how was your day?" Cupcakes asked eagerly.

"Solen går aldrig. Hur ska jag kunna veta vilken dag det är?"(The sun never sets. How am I supposed to know what day it is?)

"You know I can't understand you as much as I should but that's okay right? I'm sure I can get the gist of what you're saying. My day was great, thanks for asking."

"Varför är din rustning rosa ändå?"(Why is your armor pink anyway?"

And these two separate conversations lasted for hours.


	6. Episode 6

**Episode 6: Movie Night**

**A/N: Whoops! Looks like I forgot to update over the weekend. But there's a perfectly good reason for that...there isn't one. I'd be lying if I said I was busy. Fuck it, here it is. Enjoy the thing.**

Sloth lay on the bed that used to belong to Private Morino. It had felt very uncomfortable and when she lifted the mattress she noticed that there was an abundance of snacks under the mattress. She had no idea what to make of this and just decided to let them stay there. Besides she probably wouldn't get much sleep here anyway. For starters the sun never set here and also she had other things on her mind. If she was staying in this canyon for awhile she knew she would probably see Elsa again. She still didn't understand why she couldn't just listen to reason and why she was making this so difficult. She was trying her hardest to apologize for her past mistakes but Elsa just wasn't having any of it.

Sloth pounded down on the mattress under her. Dammit why couldn't she understand?! She made a vow to herself then and there that the next time she saw Elsa she would try her hardest to finally get her forgiveness...even if it killed her.

"Hey! Specialist lady! You in here!"

She heard a voice coming from the left side of the base and sat up on the mattress. She heard two sets of feet coming her way and wondered what was going on.

Sergeant Anna and Bubbles had emerged from a corner of the base and stared at Sloth.

"Ahh good, you're still here. Wait, where's Spacecati?" Sergeant Anna asked.

Sloth shrugged, "He showed me to the bed and then immediately left."

"Damn. I needed him to relay a message to the rest of the troops. No matter. Private Bubbles!"

Bubbles brought himself to attention, or at least to a position in which he believed to be attention. Which in all honestly just looked like he had been scared shitless.

"Yes, ma'am?!"

"Tell the rest of the soldiers to group up at that spot where you idiots first tried learn how to shoot."

"Oh, uh...right away. I guess." instead of making the situation much more awkward than it already was he made a hasty retreat out the base once again.

Sloth looked at the sergeant with a puzzled expression, "What was that about?"

Sergeant Anna shrugged off her question, "Never mind that. I've finally found a use for you here. For us, I mean."

She panicked a little bit, "Oookay...what do you need me to do?"

Anna smirked and paced around the room, "Well seeing as those damn Blues took our flag I think it's about time we returned the favor don't you think?"

Sloth didn't know how to answer that but she was afraid she knew where Anna was going with this. All she did was nod.

"I think so too! And so that's where you come in."

Sloth felt a tingle in her spine, she felt this coming, "You want me to take out the Blues and bring their flag here, right?"

"Well...you're half right."

She raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

"Well I _do _want you to get their flag but I don't want you to harm anyone in their base."

"I'm, uh...I'm not quite sure I understand."

"Really? Because this plan seems pretty straightforward to me."

"Well yeah but-"

Anna brought a hand up to stop Sloth's train of thought, "You said so yourself you would do _anything _I asked of you. And I'm asking you to do this. You can leave whenever you want to, take your time and get ready."

And before she could protest anymore, Anna left the base. Leaving Sloth alone once again. She sighed, it looked like she was going to have to confront Elsa sooner rather than later. She heard a ringing noise coming from her collar, it was the built in phone that all specialists had set on their collar. It was a burden but also very impressive. But mostly just a burden. She groaned and pressed a button on her collar, "What's up?"

"Hey, uh...it's Cid over at HQ. Boss Man wants to know when the hell you're coming back."

"Why doesn't he just ask me himself?"

There was a pause on the other end and she heard a faint rolling of a chair. She heard a muted voice say, "She said she wants to talk to you."

Sloth was confused until she heard another voice on the other end, "Aah, Sloth! How is it going over there in that rather pointless box canyon you're in."

"Umm...good I guess. Is there something you need Mr. Supervisor, sir?"

"Ahh yes. See you've been there for a while now and I was just wondering that maybe it was time for you to head on back to the base."

Sloth thought about this for a bit. She _had _been here for awhile. There was really no reason for her to stay. There was nothing of importance going on here, at least nothing that needed her immediate help. And yet...

"I'm sorry sir but my mission isn't done yet. I need to see it through before I can go back."

The Supervisor didn't respond immediately and when he did he let out a long sigh first, "I don't think you understand, Sloth. We need you back here as soon as possible."

"I understand that, sir. But there are still a few things I need to do here and I'm not leaving until I do."

"Are you disobeying a direct order, Sloth. I'll have you know that there are major repercussions for doing so. You _will _regret this."

"Well then so be it. I'm not done here yet and you're just going to have to deal with that sir."

"What the hell did you just sa-" Sloth hung up before he could finish that sentence. She sighed. There _was _going to be hell to pay when she finally got back but she would deal with that when the time came to do so.

For now though, she had her orders. She needed to go back to Blue Base and she needed to take their flag.

After about half an hour of searching, twenty minutes of which were spent just muttering to herself about what a bunch of idiots those two were for leaving, Elsa finally gave up and went back into the base. She heard grunting coming from somewhere in the base.

"Umm Elsa, you in here?" came Duck's strained voice, "Cause I could really use your help."

Elsa frowned and went towards the direction of the voice. She saw Duck struggling to carry a medium sized flat screen TV, "How the hell did you find this?"

"The better question would be how did I _not _find this?"

Elsa had no idea what to make of that question and instead just grabbed the other side of the TV, helping Duck carry it back towards the center of the base where all the beds lay. This was also the room Elsa had been pacing in earlier before.

They were able to find an outlet that they could plug the TV in except there was one obvious problem.

"Umm...don't we need some sort of DVD player?" Elsa asked.

Duck saluted, "The Storage Room King is on the job!" and dashed back towards the messy storage room.

She stared into the dusty TV and took the time to pat down the dust that had completely covered it. The dust made her cough and sneeze uncontrollably. In her coughing fit Duck finally returned with a DVD player somehow.

"How _cough _the hell _cough _did you find a _cough _DVD Player?"

"The better question would be-"

"Shut up _cough _and plug it in!"

Duck shut up and plugged in the DVD Player with amazing ease and put the DVD in. They both sat down to watch this movie that apparently starred Elsa.

"Alright well let's see what this movie is all about." Elsa said as she crossed her arms and frowned. She didn't exactly like this impostor stealing her look.

The next two hours were...well they were pretty educational to say the least. Elsa's jaw dropped as soon as she saw Elsa as an adult and she never brought it back up. This woman on the screen looked _exactly _like her. It was one thing to see the similarities on the cover but now that she was finally watching the movie she found her speculation to be incredibly true. This woman had the same exact facial features as Elsa, same eye color, same lips, same nose, same hair, same _everything_. How was this possible?!

"When was this movie made again?" she asked.

Duck checked the cover, "Uh apparently it was made in the year 2013."

2013?! That was years ago! Many many many years ago! How did...how was this possible? Elsa shook her head. It was probably best not to dwell on it too much.

"Let's just...let's just put this all back okay? And we tell _no one _about this. Understood?"

"But that movie was so _good_! Everyone should see it. I actually wanna see it again. And again...and again...and again..."

"_No one _you her me?! No one one else must know about this. In fact it's best that we just...I don't know...put all this behind us. Today's been a weird fucking day."

Duck sighed but followed along. With Elsa's help they brought everything back into the storage room.


	7. Episode 7

**Episode 7: **

**A/N: This episode is dedicated to /u/HalJordanGotSweg. We miss you buddy.**

The cave wasn't exactly a cave persay. It was more of a giant, light brown, rocky corridor that pointlessly connected the Red Base to the Blue one. There was really no reason for anyone to be here. But Hikari Oni and Kinofpumps found themselves here anyway, staring down a hole that was just wide enough to swallow a certain purple armored soldier.

Kinofpumps, who was still carrying the rope over his shoulder, knelt down over the hole and frowned, "Okay well I can't see shit."

Hikari Oni knelt down over the hole as well, "You, uh...you didn't think to bring a flashlight with you as well?"

"Look I'm just winging all of this right now, okay?" Kinofpumps looked around the cave and his face lit up as if an idea formed in his head, "I've got an idea."

Hikari Oni stayed near the hole but looked towards Kinofpumps who was tying part of the rope around a large rock, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he said as he tightened the rope around the rock. "Now, I need you to stay by this rope and...I don't know, just make sure it doesn't untie or whatever."

She walked over to the rock, "And what if it does?"

"Then use that superhuman strength you probably have to keep me from falling to my death." He walked back to the hole and tugged on the rope a little bit to make sure it wouldn't give, "You _do_ have superhuman strength, right?"

Hikari Oni rolled her eyes as he descended down into the hole, "What am I supposed to tell Elsa?"

"I don't know! You're the one that wanted to tag along in the first place so you think of something!" he called out.

Bored out of her mind already, Hikari Oni sat on the rock and called out to him, "Just let me know when you get to the bottom!"

"Will do!" he replied. But his voice sounded much more quiet and distant, he must be farther down the hole than she thought.

After about five minutes of waiting the rock had been incredibly uncomfortable to sit on and Hikari Oni was pretty much tired of waiting for a reply.

"Fuck it, I'm sure he's fine." she said as she made her way out of the cave.

Over at Red Base, Private Bubbles had successfully gathered all the troops outside. They now stood waiting ever so patiently for their commanding officer to arrive.

"Where the hell is she?!" asked Spacecati. Bubbles had finally found him under the tree messing around with Sergeant Anna's shotgun and pulling off the worst Anna impression he had ever seen.

Bubbles shrugged, "She's probably busy with something, I don't know. Look all I _do _know is that she wanted me to gather you all here outside the base where we had our first target practice. So I guess we just have to wait."

"Som sjukvårdare sa något om en annan bas. Kan jag gå kolla upp det?" (That medic said something about another base. Can I go check it out?)

"Miguel wants to know why we're here too." translated Spacecati.

"Vänta lite, jag behöver inte din tillåtelse. Jag kan åka dit när jag vill." (Wait a second, I don't need your permission. I can go there anytime I want.)

"And now he's saying he needs to use the...bathroom? Can robots _even _go to the bathroom?"

"Did you guys add some port or slot that he can do that?" asked Bubbles.

"No! That's fucking gross why would we add that?!"

"Settle down everybody and grab a weapon." The voice came from Sergeant Anna who had emerged from the base carrying a plethora of assault rifles.

The soldiers all looked confused. They never expected Sergeant Anna to let them shoot a gun again let alone _hold _one.

"Uh...you sure you could trust us with guns again ma'am. I mean the last time we tried this Cupcakes got shot in the foot." Spacecati finally said.

"I still don't forgive you guys for that, by the way." said Cupcakes, who had been sitting on the grass this entire time seeing as his foot still hurt like a bitch.

"Just shut up and take a gun. Besides we don't have time for target practice. It's time for the real thing."

The soldiers shrugged and decided not to question their commanding officer any more, walking up to her and grabbing an assault rifle.

When Spacecati walked up to her she looked down at his hands and looked back at him with a glare, "What the fuck are you doing with my shotgun?!"

Spacecati grinned and laughed nervously, "Oh, this?! Well see there's a perfectly good reason that I have it and- oof!"

He said nothing else as he felt a foot kick him directly between the legs, making him double over in severe pain and agony. Anna felt and showed zero remorse as she dropped an Assault Rifle on his head.

There was one Assault Rifle left and she walked up to Cupcakes who had obviously not gotten up to get a gun. She dropped it on his lap and looked down at him, "Come on Private, you gotta get up. We're gonna need all the manpower we can get."

He looked down at his foot and then back up at Anna, "Yeah I don't think that's gonna be very easy."

Anna quickly knelt down and grabbed his hand, bringing him back up aggressively, "Oh quit being such a fucking pansy and get up."

It took everything he had not to scream out in pain once weight was put on his injured foot, yet he still let out the most unmanly yelp of pain ever made. Anna picked up the rifle and shoved it into his hands and walked back to the downed Spacecati, picking up her shotgun that lay next to him.

"Alright you guys," she said as she pumped the shotgun, "let's get moving."

Under the canyon two soldiers who had just been in the worst fight ever finally began to stir. The first of which was Hal Jordan. Needless to say, everything hurt right about now. It took a lot of time just to get back on his knees.

"Ah I see you're finally awake." said a voice from the left of him. Or was it the right? Honestly it was still pretty hard to tell. He tested his luck and looked to the right and noticed Jerome who was still sitting by the fire, except something was different about him.

He tried to say "How long was I out?" but in his groggy state he was only able to mumble out, "hulummusaow..."

"I, uh...I didn't quite catch that."

With as much strength as he could muster he was able to bring himself up to sit on the cold rock under him. He rubbed his head which was still throbbing like a bitch and groaned.

Jerome chuckled, "I see you both did quite a number on each other." He looked over at Morino who was taking a lot longer to get up.

Another groan, but this time he attempted to make words again, "How...long...was...I out?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Though if I had to make an educated guess I'd say about an hour."

"An _hour_?!" he asked, still rubbing his head.

"Yes. Now, once the both of you have recovered from the state you're in right now I think it's about time we move out."

"Move out? Where?"

He smiled, "We're going to find a way out of here."

Hal Jordan tried to maneuver around so he could get a better look at him, "Wait, seriously?! Why now of all times?!"

"Well after that fight, if you could even call it a fight, I came to a conclusion. You guys have no idea what it takes to survive down here."

"And you do?"

"Of course. I've been down here for a very long time I know what lies in the cave and I'm telling you that you guys will die down here even _with _my help. So I need to get you back to the surface."

"Well that's great and all but-" his sentence was interrupted as he finally noticed what felt different about Jerome, "-are you wearing my armor?!"

"So you finally noticed?" he said as he patted on the purple armor that he was now wearing, "You're not going to survive with this banged up armor and so I gave you mine instead."

He looked down and noticed that he was indeed wearing Jerome's green armor. Part of him felt ecstatic, this was what he always wanted. This was the reward he was supposed to get for taking their flag and now...now he had it. He couldn't help but smile, but that smile quickly faded as he had a gross realization, "Wait a second you changed me while I was unconscious?"

"Oh god no, I just detached your armor, kept your underarmor on and attached the armor that I was wearing."

Hal Jordan raised an eyebrow, "You can do that?"

"Yes...?"

He didn't answer and instead stared on. After awhile he smacked his forehead hard and groaned, "I've been taking this entire fucking thing off whenever I went to the bathroom. Goddammit! That must be what that zipper down there is for."

"Ugh...what the hell are you guys talking about?" said Morino, who was finally standing and clutching his aching head.

"Ahh it's nothing important. Oh by the way, catch!" Jerome replied as he threw what looked to be a metallic handle in Morino's direction.

He fumbled with it and, once he got a good grip on the handle, stared at it intently, "What the hell is this?"

"You will know in due time, but for now..." Jerome walked past them and stared down at the bottom of the plateau, "...let's get moving."


	8. Episode 8

**Episode 8:**

**A/N: Hmm, I actually have nothing to say today. Enjoy the episode, you guys!**

The cave wasn't exactly a cave persay. It was more of...wait I've already fucking said this. Anyway Sloth found herself in the cave this time around, looking around every rock and corner to make sure the coast was clear. She happened to stumble upon one rather large rock with rope tied to it. She was incredibly confused and stepped over to take a closer look when she heard a voice from behind her.

"Hi there!" the voice said. She yelled out in surprise and turned around, seeing a certain soldier wearing red and white armor. He was smiling at her.

"_What the fuck are you doing here?!"_ exclaimed Sloth.

"Well see I was on my way to the Blue Base too and I saw you in this cave so I decided to tag along!" Harmy replied.

"Wait a second..." she replied, "...you must have left a bit before I did how are you behind me?"

"Well we could just chalk that up to me being a slow walker or to you being a fast walker. Either way-"

Sloth brought a hand up to interrupt him, "You know what? It doesn't even matter right now. What _does _matter is that we both have entirely different reasons for going over there and it's going to look pretty damn confusing if we both go in at the same time."

"Yeah, you've got a point there..."

"So what I want you to do is wait five minutes once I'm in there and you can go ahead and do whatever you need to do."

"Wait, you know why I'm going over there?"

She looked out at the exit of the cave, towards the Blue Base which was so close now, "Well yeah I mean you're a medic. Everyone knows that medics are neutral. Now I think it's time for me to go. Remember, wait five minutes!"

"You don't have to tell me twice." Harmy replied as he sat down on the cave floor.

With nothing else stopping her Sloth sighed and continued on her way to the base.

Harmy had taken to counting the seconds that passed by, "1...2...3...4..." But once he got to 20 he had somehow went to sleep.

The Blue Base itself was a buzz with activity. Hikari Oni had returned from the cave and was in the middle of explaining why she was there in the first and where the hell Kinofpumps was.

"...and you didn't think to tell me about this stupid plan of yours before doing it?" Elsa asked. She wore that same exasperated face, hidden by the palm of her hand that she had placed her head in. This pose felt very familiar to her.

"Look if we told you about the plan then there was no way you would ever let us do it!" Hikari Oni explained.

"Of course I wouldn't let you do it! Because this plan is stupid! And idiotic! And-"

"Technically stupid and idiotic are the same thing." Duck interrupted.

"Duck! Shut up!" and there's no reason to say who exclaimed this because it could have been either of them. It could probably even be _both _of them.

Duck raised his hands in surrender and sat back down on the bed he was on.

"Okay so..." Elsa continued, "where is he now?"

Hikari Oni shrugged.

"That's not exactly the answer I was looking for."

"Well I don't know what you want me to say I honestly have no idea where he is!"

"So you just _left him there?!_ He could be dead, you know that right?!"

Hikari Oni scoffed, "I'm sure he's fine! It didn't look that deep."

Elsa raised an eyebrow, her face still a mix of annoyance and exasperation and anything else synonymous with those two words, "Oh really now? And how exactly do you know that? Did you shine a flashlight down there to see how deep it really was?!"

"Well..." she sighed, "no."

"Are you fucking kidding me?! Did you plan this out at all?!"

"Look, _I _wasn't the one who came up with this plan, alright? I just tagged along because...because...Duck what is that?"

Elsa turned around to see what caused Hikari Oni to interrupt herself and her eyes widened as he saw Duck...on his bed...looking at the cover of the DVD they had watched two hours ago.

Duck looked up and pointed at it, "Oh this? Ah, it's just a DVD that Elsa and I watched a couple hours ago."

"_Duck!_" Elsa exclaimed with a voice of terror and annoyance (and all those other synonyms) that matched her face at the moment, "_I told you to put that away!_"

"Well I'm sorry but this is an _amazing _movie and I just wanted to at least see the cover again!" he hid his face behind the cover in question. "And the redhead is kinda pretty too..." he mumbled under his breath.

"I _also _told you to never, ever, _ever _tell anyone about it!"

"I didn't _tell _anyone about it! I was _asked _about it!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

Hikari Oni in the meanwhile just looked on in absolute confusion at this quarrel between the two, incredibly unsure of what happened two hours ago and what was happening now. She realized though that this dispute directed Elsa's anger away from her and so she decided to let this argument continue with a smile on her face.

Speaking of Kinofpumps he had finally made his way down the dark depths of the canyon. He had descended the rope and, after a long while, finally found himself staring into the large vast underbelly full of gray rocks and...gray rocks and...gray rocks. There wasn't even a tree.

As he stared in awe he realized he had one very big problem. He was literally at the end of his rope and it looked like a 200 foot drop to the bottom. Obviously this wasn't the case it was probably more like 50 but even so it was terrifying. He had eyed a rather large rock that seemed to be only a few feet away from him but in reality it wasn't. Even so he tried to use the remaining rope he had to dangle off of it and start swinging himself in the general direction of the rock. Once he felt like he had gained enough momentum he had launched himself off to the rope and into the welcoming arms of the rock that gained ever so close. The only problem was he actually _didn't _gain enough momentum and found himself clawing at air as he fell down to his certain doom.

And so here he was now, on the floor of this giant cave and unable to move. Everything hurt obviously and all he could really do was look around. He was somehow not dead, it was a miracle! But he couldn't fucking move which really put a damper on his celebration.

"Anyone here?" he mumbled out, "I could really use some help right about now."

He heard someone stir from the left of him. Or was it the right of him? He honestly didn't know and didn't care. But it seemed to be getting closer.

_Oh thank god there's someone here, _he thought to himself. _Maybe they can help me out and I can get on with my search._

His hopes were soon dashed as the figure emerged from a rock in front of him. He had hoped that it was some sort of soldier who had been stranded here for a very long time and yet would still be eager to help him. Maybe he'd even have large hair and sideburns because he hadn't shaved in forever. But this was no stranded soldier. No this thing that emerged wasn't even human.

The creature was almost the same height as he was. It had scaly, grayish skin and it was incredibly bow-legged. Instead of five tiny toes on his large feet there seemed to be two large toes on each foot. It also only had three "fingers" on each hand. Its most defining feature though was it's mouth. This creature had four mandibles instead of the two he was usually accustomed to seeing. The mouth stretched out as it let out a terrifying roar, presenting its rows and rows of sharp, terrifying, bone-crushing, flesh-ripping (these were all hypothetical adjectives, obviously) teeth.

_I am so fucked._


	9. Episode 9

**Episode 9: Frazz **

**A/N: Just realized I forgot to make a fucking title for Episode 8. Fuck it. Just...make your own title I guess? **

Jerome, Hal Jordan and Morino had finally made their way down the steep plateau using these large notches Jerome had apparently made to climb up and down the large flat rock. They had been traversing the cave for what seemed like hours, or had it been minutes? This cave was messing with their perception of time.

"How much longer till we're out of here?" Morino whined.

"That depends on how long it takes us to find an exit. Like I said, I don't know what this place has in store for us. I haven't even explored the entirety of it yet." Jerome replied.

Hal Jordan smacked Morino on the arm, "Quit whining, you big baby. Just be on the lookout for anything that might try to kill us...or eat us...or both."

Morino rubbed his arm, "Yeah, about that...why do _I _have to be on lookout duty. This seems like a pretty easy job we could all do."

They rounded another corner, using the path the rocks provided for them. "True. But I want you to put all of your effort in looking out for any dangers. It's why I entrusted you with that important object on your belt."

Speaking of the object, Morino brought it up from where it was holstered on his belt and started swinging it around, "Yeah speaking of which, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this thing?! You haven't told me what it's for yet, Jerome."

"Trust me, when the time comes you will know what to do."

"That's so fucking vague! Just tell me!"

"Wait a second...Jerome?" Hal Jordan interrupted, "Why are you calling him Jerome you know his name is- wait guys what the fuck is that?"

He pointed over to somewhere past them and they all looked in his direction. There seemed to be some sort of bow-legged creature opening and closing it's mouth (or is it mouths?). It let out this ear-piercing roar and looked to be approaching something.

It was only when they heard a weak voice exclaim, "I could really use some help right now if anyone's out there." that they realized that the something was actually a some_one_.

Hal Jordan pushed his way past his two companions, "Wait a second I know that voice."

The creature continued to advance and Hal Jordan sidestepped around so he wasn't in it's peripheral vision. He continued to walk as quickly yet also as silently as possible. A large rock was blocking his view but once he got around it his fears were confirmed to be true. There on the ground lay a prone and probably injured Kinofpumps. His face was a mix of terror and...no that was about it.

He had to act fast. He abandoned his idea of walking fast and quiet and made a mad dash for the creature who towered over his comrade, tackling it to the ground.

Jerome and Morino looked on as the green-armored soldier wrestled this beast to the ground, being extra careful not to get caught by any of its teeth. Jerome was the second one to spring into action, running up to Hal Jordan in order to help him but not before yelling back at Morino, "Use the thing!"

He looked down at the handle in his right hand and lifted it up, "How?!"

"Just swing it!" Jerome yelled back as he helped keep the creature grounded.

"Swing it what the hell is he-" his thought was interrupted as he swung the handle and a glowing blue blade emerged from it. He almost dropped it in shock. "Holy shit! This is fucking cool!" he exclaimed as he swung the sword around.

"Yeah it's fucking awesome! Now help us out here!" Hal Jordan cried out. Struggling, even with Jerome's help, to keep the creature down.

Their hard work came to no avail, it was able to muscle its way out from under them and started to make its way towards Kinofpumps once again. Morino charged towards it on instinct alone. He may have been a blue, but above all he was a human being and he wasn't just going to stand by and watch him get eaten. Or worse. The beast never saw Morino coming as he plunged the sword, which buzzed with energy as he did so, straight through its gut.

It cried out in pain and knocked Morino back, the sword still lodged inside him. The beast was now on its knees and struggled to pull the sword out of him. It tried as hard as it could but the pain became too much. The creature collapsed with the sword still halfway in its innards, not making a sound.

Everyone was silent, weary at the fact that it may come back to life as if this was some sort of shitty horror movie but, with great relief, it stayed still on the ground. Morino got back up to his feet and stood over the creature. With all his strength he pulled the sword out of its gut and grimaced, half of it was now covered with some sort of purple goo, "Oh god, this is its blood isn't it? This is fucking disgusting."

He swung the sword back and forth to try and get as much off as possible as everybody else, except for Kinofpumps obviously, got back on their feet. Hal Jordan rushed over to his blue teammate's side and kneeled over him, "You idiot. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you, asshole. Now help me up." he replied weakly. But still with much more strength than before.

Hal Jordan grabbed one of his arms and lifted him up off the ground as Morino continued to swing the sword back and forth, "So wait...why did you give this to _me_?"

Jerome lightly chuckled, "Well seeing as I had already given Hal Jordan here my armor I figured I had to give you _something _to defend yourself with. I've had that sword with me for years so take good care of it, you hear?"

"Yeah yeah, it'll be totally fine with me. Now come on, we should probably get moving. I can't wait to show this to Sarge!"

Jerome frowned but nodded in agreement. He started walking and the soldiers behind him followed.

Kinofpumps tried all he could to keep his feet moving as well but it hurt a lot to just move, "So wait...what's going on here? Who's that? Where are we going?"

Hal Jordan rolled his eyes, "I'll explain along the way. Just shut up and let's keep moving. By the way, what do you think about the armor? Pretty cool right?"

"Meh. Green isn't your color."

He frowned, "I can just drop you at anytime you know that right?"

Meanwhile, outside of the cave, outside of the canyon even there lay a giant base of operations. It would take forever to get into the specifics of the base just know that it's rather large, stocked to the brim with guns, vehicles, and soldiers armed to the teeth with guns and vehicles. Wait, that doesn't make any sense you can't exactly _arm _a vehicle and...anyway that's not important. The _important _thing is that past all the vast hallways, corridors, and rooms this base had, past the command centers, in which one of them held two men who had somehow snuck doughnuts into their command, past _all of that _was a room. A large, extravagant room that housed a certain Supervisor. The room was decked out to look like some sort of regal log cabin. There was a wooden floor that housed a large square carpet in the middle, there sat a large bookcase on one wall with books that had rarely ever been touched and a bear hung on another side of the wall. Why did he have this? Probably just to show off. Whether it was his ability to kill a bear or his insane amount of wealth was still unsure. The man in question stood in front of a large monitor on one of his walls, behind a wooden desk with papers strewn about everywhere and a mug with some sort of discernible drink.

The man of course was The Supervisor in case you somehow didn't gather that through that perfectly thorough and incredibly descriptive and _amazing..._description. He swiped his hand to the right cycling through a list of 11 specialists. There were originally 13 specialists but one was being incredibly insubordinate and another was missing.

He was enraged and he moved his hand around furiously, scanning through each and every specialist trying to find the perfect one.

"I'll teach that insubordinate bitch to disobey a direct order." he said to himself, "Just gotta find the perfect one..."

He kept looking through the faces of each specialist he had hand picked, all showing great promise and loyalty, apparently that wasn't the case for one of them. He looked through their profiles, "Someone that will bring you back whether you like it or not."

His hand swiped to the right once more, "Someone ruthless, someone cunning, someone who can actually _kill _when they were told to, someone like-" one more swipe and his face lit up.

"Perfect."

He tapped on the profile picture and a green light surrounded the frame of the picture, flashing on and off, a familiar dial tone ringing in his ears.

After a few rings someone picked up on the other end, "What's up?"

The Supervisor smiled, "I have another mission for you. I need you to bring Sloth back from that canyon she's decided to hide in."

"Getting straight to the point I see. Alright well once I finish up over here I'll head down to the canyon to get her."

The smile turned into a devilish grin, "Excellent. I'd just like you to know don't take any chances with her. Show no mercy if she doesn't want to come back."

"I never do anyway." the man replied as some sort of groaning sound was heard on his side.

"What is that?"

"Ah it's just someone that _refuses _to just fucking _die._ Hold on a second." the man stopped talking and the next sound heard was a gunshot, "Alright well looks like I'm done here so I guess I'll head out over to that canyon."

"Don't you want to come back to base and get ready first?"

There was a clicking sound, as if he was reloading, "Nah, I'm good. I've got all I need to take her down anyway."

"Get it done then, Frazz." The Supervisor said before pressing the profile picture once more.

The green light was now flashing red and he turned around and sat back down in his large leather office chair because of course he would have a large leather office chair. The grin was still on his face.

**A/N: Gah, fucking finally! And last but not least the last person I haven't introduced in this fic.**

**Frazz = /u/frazzguy**


	10. Episode 10

**Episode 10: Snap**

**A/N: So...as you can probably tell, I'm back. Heheh. It's, uh...it's been a very productive week writing-wise so, you know, enjoy. Also thanks for the overwhelming support and...gah you know what? This episode is too super serious for such a warm-hearted and sappy Author's Note. I'll write a better one in the next episode.**

Sloth was able to enter the base as quietly as she had entered it the first time. She didn't really get a good look at the base seeing as she was only in it for a short time but if the Blue base had a similar layout to the red one then she knew the flag would be somewhere in the center.

She subconsciously reached to the side of her, to her empty holster. She had left her pistol back at the Red Base seeing as her orders were to not harm any soldiers during her mission. Which was fine by her honestly, she honestly didn't think she'd have it in her to pull the trigger on Elsa, even if all she had brought with her were stun rounds.

Elsa.

She was in this base somewhere, when she was making her way to the entrance she noticed that the outside was suspiciously quiet. Meaning either they were all dead or they were all inside, voices somewhere inside the base told her the former couldn't be true.

Sloth propped herself up on a wall as she saw light emanating from a doorway in front of her and heard voices coming from inside. Slowly she scooted closer and closer to it, trying to hear the conversation and determine the best time to sneak across without being seen. Although she couldn't help but overhear the rather interesting conversation going on inside.

She heard a familiar voice speak with a voice that was two parts annoyance and one part downright sexiness (**A/N: My words, not hers**) and smiled. This was Elsa, alright.

"Look we're not going to have this discussion alright, Duck. Now give me the fucking DVD!"

"I think you've had enough Elsa. Your obsession with that woman on the TV is getting to be a _bit _too much don't you think?"

She assumed that the person speaking was Duck and yet was still fairly confused. What woman? What TV? Obsession? She scooted closer to the doorway to get a closer look inside to see what the hell was going in there. There was a soldier in dark blue lying on a bed holding a plastic rectangular case which she assumed was the DVD in question. She also assumed that this soldier was Duck because there was a soldier who she immediately identified as Elsa in her gorgeous (**A/N: Once again my words, not hers**) light blue armor and platinum blonde braid slung over her shoulder that was staring down at him with a glare that could probably burn through metal. There was another soldier there as well with armor that was a shade darker than Elsa's but still light blue, if that made any sense, who stood silent with her arms crossed as she smiled at this argument in front of her.

"I'm not _obsessed _with her alright?"

"Well I mean when you saw her your jaw dropped and so that's a pretty clear indication that you're obsessed with her. I bet you like her too."

Sloth wasn't sure but it seemed that Elsa's cheeks grew a little pink at that comment, "I don't _like _her, okay? I just think it's...interesting that she looks so much like me."

It was obvious that this conversation had these people distracted so Sloth took her chance and slowly made her way past the doorframe, making sure no one would look in her direction.

"Hear that, Hikari Oni? Elsa likes a girl in a movie, she's practically proposing! Ooh, I call flower bearer! Or is it ring boy? Man ring?"

"Alright, that's it! Give me the fucking DVD, I'm throwing it away."

Sloth, halfway past the door, saw Elsa move closer to Duck, forcefully grab the DVD out of his hands and turn around.

_Shit._

Elsa froze. Sloth froze. They stared at each other surprised and completely silent. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Hikari Oni was concerned when her commanding officer had somehow been frozen in place and walked over to her to see what was wrong. She saw Sloth in the doorway and closed her mouth she didn't know was open, maybe it was to ask Elsa what was wrong but that question was obviously already answered.

Sloth didn't know what to do. She couldn't exactly keep going into the base that would've been very awkward. But she didn't want to stay here either. Of course she knew there was that risk of running into Elsa and finally confronting her but she wanted to do it on _her _terms, when she was actually _ready _to face her. Not like this.

"Well welcome back, specialist lady whose name I've forgotten! It's been awhile!" Duck finally said, cutting through the tension in the room.

Elsa dropped her hands and straightened her posture. She took a deep breath and exhaled before speaking, "Private Duck, Private Oni, I need you to leave the base. Right now."

"Aww, but we need to show her the movie! I think she'd like it actually you see because-" Duck was interrupted by the strong arms of Hikari Oni who was practically dragging him out of the room, after a bit of doing he got himself back on his feet and followed.

Sloth made the mistake of turning to look at the soldiers leaving and when she turned back she saw her ex-friend making her way towards her. And fast. In a couple seconds Elsa had pushed her into wall behind her hard and grabbed the collar of her black armor.

"_What the hell are you doing here?!" _Elsa asked, her words like venom piercing through Sloth and making her stomach churn. She had seen Elsa angry before but this was something different. The hard glare she was giving off was cold and unforgiving and made Sloth shrink under her gaze. Her lips were curled into a sneer that showed off her teeth, which were gritted so hard she was afraid Elsa would break her jaw. The grip on her collar was strong and it was obvious she wasn't going anywhere. Words had escaped Sloth as she just felt tiny and somehow cold, her mouth was slightly open but no sounds came out.

Elsa's expression darkened at her silence and Sloth feared what would happen next, surprisingly all she did was push herself off of the black-armored soldier and walk away.

"You know what? It doesn't matter. Just...just leave."

"Elsa wait," Sloth said, able to finally say something, "can I just...can I talk to you, please?"

Elsa didn't turn around and instead looked down at the floor, shutting her eyes and balling her fists up as tight as possible, "What's there to talk about?"

"I don't think I explained myself very well to you last time and I want to do so now."

"What makes you think I want to hear what you have to say?"

"Because you didn't tell me to leave this canyon. You could have, but you sent me to the other base. You knew they would want revenge. You knew that the only use they would actually have of me is to come back here and enact any _plan _of revenge they actually had. You knew I would come back here."

There was no answer. Sloth took this as a sign that she was right and couldn't help the faint smile that started across her face. Pushing her luck she grabbed one of Elsa's wrists gently. But once they touched Elsa inhaled sharply and turned around, pulling her hand away from Sloth's.

"_No! _I don't want anything to do with you! You're a liar! And a cheat! I should have known...should have known that you were only after spot. You were never my _friend_. I was nothing to you! And now I see what you truly are. A no good...lying..._bitch!_"

Before Elsa could say anything else she felt a stinging pain on her cheek that almost knocked her down to her knees. She turned around and was ready to send a furious glare back at Sloth but was surprised to see that Sloth had a look set that outmatched the fury and aggression in hers and she back off.

"That is _it_!" Sloth finally spoke with so much pent up anger and frustration, "I am done with being ignored! I am _done _with being misunderstood! _I am done with not being listened to!"_

Elsa said nothing, whether it was due to the fact that she finally decided to listen or if she was just shocked at the slap she had just received was still anyone's guess though.

"You don't think it's been hard on me too?! You have no idea how long I've wanted to explain myself to you ever since you walked out of my life that day! I have been suffering just as much as you have, all this time I never knew where you were and yes I will admit I tried to forget about you but that's only because it seemed like you wanted to just up and forget about me! I wanted so bad to just give up and move on but I just _couldn't_. There was always that voice in the back of my head that said you were out there somewhere and I _tried _to ignore it but then I was assigned to this canyon. And I saw you."

Elsa still looked on at her best friend, their faces had softened as Sloth finally had that time to explain herself fully.

"And so I told you to call me 'Sloth' in order to gauge your reaction, see what would happen if I told you that name and...nothing. It was like that name meant _nothing_ to you and I just took that as a sign that you had finally forgotten me. And you have no idea how much that hurt! To feel like you had finally lost your former best friend for good! And then you hit me! And there was that anger in your eyes and a part of me was glad because you hadn't forgotten, that I would finally have time to explain to you what happened...and then I did."

The anger was back in Sloth's face as she continued, "Why won't you listen to reason, Elsa?! Why is that so hard for you?! I'm _not _the bad guy here! I'm trying to tell you this! I'm trying _so hard _to make you understand and you just won't! Why won't you, Elsa?! Why are you being so stubborn?!"

She could feel tears form in her eyes and could feel a lump in her throat, "Can't you see, Elsa?! Can't you see why I'm trying so hard?! I want you back! Please, I..."

Sloth couldn't hold it back anymore. The tears had started to pour down her face and her breath hitched. But she needed to say one more thing. She needed to drive her point home. She grabbed Elsa's shoulders and was surprised when Elsa opened her eyes finally, but even more surprised when she saw tears in her eyes as well. She was trying so hard to remain angry at Sloth but it was becoming increasingly difficult after each passing second. She turned away from Sloth, trying to get away from the apologetic look on her face that was just crushing her soul bit by bit.

Sloth took a shaky breath before finishing her sentence, "...I want my best friend back."

Elsa took a shaky breath as well as the tears started to pour down her face. But before she could reply, they were both interrupted by the sound of gunfire coming from outside the base.


	11. Episode 11

**Episode 11: Negotiating a Surrender**

**A/N: Alright now to do a proper note thingie since last episode was so heavy on the sad shit. Ahem, thanks for the overwhelming support on this honestly ridiculous fanfic that I'm taking way too goddamn seriously (or not seriously enough, one or the other). And...actually no that's it. Enjoy the episode, you guys.**

Sergeant Anna stood behind all of her soldiers, barking out orders. Of course the only order she kept giving was to "Keep Shooting". The soldiers couldn't hear her through the barrage of bullets coming through all of their guns though and so they just decided to do the only logical thing and keep shooting.

"Sergeant Anna, I can't feel my hands!" said Cupcakes, his voice shaky due to the strong recoil of the rifle and his persistence to keep the rifle in question steady.

"Maybe you should lay off the trigger, you dumbass!" Bubbles yelled out.

Hikari Oni and Duck were both crouched behind a large rock, once they saw the red soldiers charging at their base they decided to find some cover instead of doing the logical thing and going back inside the base and warning Elsa.

"Got any ideas, Duck?"

"Hmm...you could try wearing a different shade of blue. Your color looks way too much like Elsa's."

"What the fuck are you- I meant any ideas on how to get out of this mess right now!"

Bullets whizzed past them and ricocheted off the rock they were behind. As it stood the only options they had were to run or fight. And seeing as they didn't exactly have any guns all they could really do was run.

Hikari Oni sighed, "You know what fuck it. Let's just wait till they stop shooting and make a break for it. Sound good?"

"What are we breaking?"

"Never mind!"

Cupcakes heard a clicking noise when he pulled his trigger, "Dammit I ran out of ammo. Give me some ammunition, Bubbles."

Bubbles looked over at the pink soldier, "Me? I don't have any extra ammo, I'm only down to one bullet!" He pulled the trigger again, "I'm only down to zero bullets."

"Wait what?!" he exclaimed through the gunfire, "How could that be you're the one that carries all the extra rounds into battle."

"What, since when?!"

"Since the last staff meeting!" 

"What staff meeting?! When have we had time for a fucking staff meeting?!"

"Will you idiots shut up?! And why aren't you shooting?!" Sergeant Anna interrupted.

"Jag faktiskt inte har dragit min trigger alls. Jag kan behöva det här vapnet senare." (I actually haven't pulled my trigger at all. I may need this gun later.)

Sergeant Elsa had finally emerged from inside the base wondering what the hell was going on outside her base. She yelled out to the red soldiers, "What the fuck are you guys doing?! Why are you shooting at my base?!"

"_Your _base? Ah finally, you must be the commanding officer! I'm here to negotiate the terms of your surrender!"

"Surrender, what..." Elsa had no idea what to make of this situation. First she was having this big fight with her former best friend and now she was getting shot at.

"Now I'm gonna head over there to start the negotiation...process...thingie, my men will stay here if your men will stay behind that rock and not do anything...funny."

Elsa still didn't say anything and Anna took that as a sign that it was safe to approach.

"Sergeant Anna are you sure you can trust her?" Spacecati asked wearily.

"Oh please she could never hurt me." Anna brought up her shotgun, "Not while I have this beauty."

Anna made her way closer to the Blue Base, her eyes staring intensely at the woman in light blue armor.

Hikari Oni peeked out from under the rock and sat back down snickering. She slapped Duck's shoulder to get his attention, "Hey Duck look, it's that redhead chick you were gawking over."

"Really?!" he said as he brought himself up from behind the rock. Hikari Oni waited for his reaction, smiling to herself. After a minute Duck sat down, eyes wide and cheeks flushed red.

She waved a hand over his face, "You, uh...you okay there?"

"I must marry her."

Hikari Oni was officially creeped out and scooted back from Duck, "Oookay..."

Anna had finally gotten to the entrance of the Blue Base and stared at Elsa, trying to look as confident and as "in-charge" as possible.

Elsa tried to do the same although she was much more experienced with this kind of look. She folded her arms across her chest, "Okay so what's this about a surrender?"

"Yeah before I get to that, where's that specialist lady I sent here?"

Elsa looked to the entrance of her base and was surprised that Sloth wasn't there. She must have stayed inside.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Elsa lied.

"She-she never went back here?" Anna questioned with her eyebrow raised.

Elsa shook her head. She didn't exactly know _why _she was lying.

"Well then...why don't we discuss the terms inside?" Anna asked as she walked inside the base before Elsa could say anything.

"Wait what?! Hold up where the fuck are you going? Get back here!"

"Can't hear you, I'm already inside!"

Elsa groaned and followed the headstrong soldier inside the base. She just had to count on Sloth knowing better than to stay where she could easily be seen.

"I see you're wearing black armor. Did The Supervisor hire new specialists?"

It took awhile for Kinofpumps to register that the question posed by the soldier in front of him was actually directed towards him and even then all that actually really came out was a labored, "I'm sorry?"

The purple armored-wait, purple? Wasn't that the color of Hal Jordan's armor? This man in front of him looked nothing like Hal Jordan, unless he had somehow fallen long enough for his comrade to grow thick and yet incredibly well-groomed muttonchops.

"Are you _not _a specialist?" the soldier asked him.

"No he's not, he's just an idiot." Hal Jordan answered for him, "An idiot who painted his color black by going through a busted teleporter and an idiot that decided it was a good idea to follow me down here and nearly get himself killed."

"You're welcome." was all Kinofpumps had the energy to say.

Jerome's eyebrows furrowed at this exchange but he decided to just shrug it off and turn back around, "Well I just thought that he had recruited new specialists in my absence, that's all."

This comment completely went over the heads of Hal Jordan and Kinofpumps but Morino, who had been busy this whole time turning his sword on and off picked up on those interesting choice of words, "Wait, what was that?"

"Hmm?" asked Jerome without turning around.

"All those words you just said. 'Recruited new specialists'? 'Absence'? 'The Supervisor'? Is there something you're not telling us?"

Everything started to click in Hal Jordan's mind as well, "Wait a second...did you used to be a specialist?"

Jerome stopped moving, and so did the other soldiers who waited for a response. He ducked his head down and let out a long sigh, "Damn...well I suppose it's time I told you why I'm down here in the first place."


	12. Episode 12

**Episode 12: The Long-Awaited Explanation**

**A/N: I hope everyone had a wonderful Coronation Day, I know I did. Sadly I didn't make a coronation themed episode because, uh...heheh...I wrote this episode like a week in advance. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.**

Jerome turned around to look at the soldiers in order to fully explain himself. He let out one more sigh before starting, "It was about three years ago. I was actually assigned on a mission to this canyon for...something or the other, I don't know it's been two years. Unfortunately the teleporter must have not been working so well that day and instead of sending me on the surface it sent me down here."

The other soldiers looked on, waiting for Jerome to continue. But he didn't say anything else, all he did was stare at them waiting for some sort of response. After a moment it became clear that the story, if you could even call it that, was over.

Morino coughed, "That...that was it?"

Jerome squinted at that unexpected reaction, "Yes...?"

"That was the important story that you've been keeping from us all this time?!"

"I never said it was a fairly _important _story. I just said that if I ever had the time I would tell you."

"So is that why you're helping us get out of here?" Hal Jordan asked, "Because you want The Supervisor to pay for just leaving you down here?"

"Actually no, I harbor no ill feelings towards him surprisingly. I meant what I said, I need to get you guys out of here because you don't belong here and you won't survive here. Besides, your friend over there needs some serious medical attention."

Hal Jordan looked down at the soldier leaning onto him, he was slowly slipping into unconsciousness and he was also getting heavy. They needed to get out of here quick.

"Guyloo..." he heard the soldier mutter.

"What was that now?"

Instead of even attempting to talk once more Kinofpumps used the last of his strength to swing his arm up to point at something in the distance. Hal Jordan thankfully got what he was trying to say and squinted to look at whatever he was trying to point at. His eyes lit up. In this depressing gray cave Kinofpumps was able to find something...different. He couldn't tell what it was from this distance and so he walked as fast he could with an unconscious soldier on his arm to get a better look.

"What is it? What did he see?" asked Jerome.

Hal Jordan didn't answer and instead kept moving. The other two soldiers followed him without question. They were getting closer and closer to whatever it was Kinofpumps and they were staring to get a better picture. It was large from this distance and just got bigger and bigger the closer they got. They also finally noticed that...whatever this thing was was brown. A stark contrast to the dull gray they had been accustomed to.

They had now gotten as close as possible as they could and they stared in awe at this wonder before them. This sight before them was large and brown as already established, the exterior was rough and coarse and the bottom of this spectacle branched out across the cave floor, making it look like some sort of frozen waterfall. That is, if water was brown, which it thankfully isn't. To put it in much more blunt words...

"It's a giant fucking tree trunk." Morino clarified.

Jerome stared up at the sight towering before him, "My god. All this time...how have I never seen this before?!"

"I could ask you the same thing." Hal Jordan added, "So what's the plan, do we climb it?"

"Nah, it's too steep and too big. Besides we don't have a rope or anything and you don't know how to climb trees."

"Says who?" added Hal Jordan who sounded farther away from him than before.

Jerome turned around and noticed he had set Kinofpumps down and was positioned like a runner, an incredibly inexperienced runner, about to start a race.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to climb this tree. Just you watch!" he said just as he lunged himself forward towards the tree trunk.

"You're gonna kill yourself!" Jerome added before he launched himself as high as he could. Surprisingly Hal Jordan jumped fairly high and covered a lot of ground. He gripped the trunk as tightly as possible and grasped for some footing before finally finding it. They were both equally impressed that he succeeded. But that feeling faded away after a few seconds.

"Umm...now what?" Hal Jordan asked back to Jerome.

"Well for starters, don't look down. And, you know, try and keep climbing, I guess."

"Yeah see here's the thing...I'm scared of moving right now."

"So what you're just going to stay there?"

"Yes."

Jerome sighed, "Hang on, I'll see what I can do."

"Hey, uh...guys?!" cried out Morino.

Jerome looked to where he assumed Morino was and couldn't find him. He looked all around the cave to see where he had run off to.

"Over here!"

He heard his voice once more and turned his head towards the source. He saw Morino waving on the far left side of the trunk.

"Not sure if this is gonna solve the problem but I found a staircase that leads exactly where we wanted to go!"

"Haha! Thank goodness!" Hal Jordan exclaimed from his perch, "Here, catch!"

Just as he said that and let himself fall from the trunk Jerome decided to walk back to the unconscious Kinofpumps in order to pick him up and carry him up the staircase when he heard a thud from behind him. He turned around and saw Hal Jordan limp on the cave floor with a frown on his face.

"Nice catch." he said sarcastically.

Jerome helped him up and went to pick up Kinofpumps lifeless body. In a few minutes all four of them were ready and started to ascend this incredibly convenient staircase.

Over on the surface Hikari Oni and Duck still sat behind the large rock. Although they hadn't heard gunfire in awhile so there was really no point for them to be hiding.

"Fuck it, I'm going for it." Hikari Oni said as she brought herself up from behind the rock. As soon as she emerged from the rock four guns were immediately aimed at her. She brought her hands up in surrender, "Woah woah woah! Look, I'm unarmed alright?! I'm no threat to you so just put your fucking guns down!"

"That's close enough! Just, uh...just stay where you are! Or else we'll shoot! Yeah, that's right we were just busy, you know, reloading our guns! So suck it, blue!" Spacecati yelled back with uncertainty apparent in his voice.

Hikari Oni had picked up on that and dropped her hands down with a grunt, "You don't have any bullets left, do you?"

"What?! No! Where'd you get that idea?!" Spacecati exclaimed. In a quieter tone he loudly whispered out, "Fuck, how did she find out so fast?!"

"It's cause you're a terrible liar." answered Cupcakes.

"Shut it, Cupcakes. Your armor's pink."

"You know I can hear you guys! Look, our sergeants are busy talking it out in there so, you know, I thought it'd be a good idea if _we _hashed out some terms as well. Out here. Sound like a plan?"

Bubbles spoke up, "You know guys that doesn't sound like a bad idea."

"Shut it, Bubbles. I outrank all of you which means I get to make all the executive decisions right now."

"Wait what? We're all Privates how do you outrank me?"

"Yeah see I've been here longer than all of you which makes me a-"

"Super duper Private. Yeah I know I've...I've had this conversation before."

Spacecati lowered his gun and the others did the same, "Alright well that sounds reasonable! We'll just...walk over there and, uh...talk...about stuff I guess."

"Din brist på självförtroende och självsäkerhet gör dig en utmärkt ledare." (Your lack of confidence and assertiveness makes you an excellent leader.)

"Thanks for the kind words, Miguel. See _he _thinks I make a good leader."

The four soldiers walked towards the lone Hikari Oni. Or at least she _was _alone until Duck finally emerged from behind the rock. And so they stood, four red soldiers on one side, two blue soldiers on the other.

"Alright then..." Hikari Oni said as she folded her arms across her chest just like Elsa did a few minutes before, "...let's talk."


	13. Episode 13

**Episode 13: Those Two People We Haven't Seen In Awhile**

**A/N: Ugh, nothing for this note today. I'm tired for some reason even though it's only like 4 PM. Have fun!**

Cid and Wiggum sat restlessly in front of their console, bored out of their minds and stuffed full of doughnuts. They hadn't gotten a single call in weeks and so they tried to find different ways to entertain themselves, unfortunately there really wasn't a lot to do at their station so they had to use their imagination. In fact they were just in the middle of a game of 20 Questions for...some reason.

Cid sighed, "Is it a person?"

"Yes."

"Is it a man?"

"Yes."

"Is he a soldier?"

"Well I wouldn't exactly call him a soldier but-"

"It's you, isn't it?" Cid interrupted.

"Yes it is! Man, how are you so good at this?!" 

"Because it's been you the past five fucking games!"

Wiggum raised his hands up in surrender, "Alright fine, you got me! I don't have what you'd call a good imagination, okay? Besides I'm fucking bored." He picked up an empty box of doughnuts and shook it, "We're out of doughnuts again, by the way."

Cid let out a long and frustrated groan as he reclined back in his seat, "This is bullshit, man. We're better than this! We could be doing something with our lives! We shouldn't be wasting it away on these chairs eating doughnuts all the fucking time."

"Since when did you become a motivational speaker?"

"We could _be _someone, man." Cid said, shrugging off his question, "What do you want to be? What do you _really _want to be?"

Wiggum sighed as he reluctantly looked for an answer to that question, "I guess...I've always wanted to be...a soldier."

Cid pointed at himself, "So have I! And look what we're doing with our lives. _Watching _people do the shit that _we _should be doing."

"But isn't it a bit too late to get the proper training?" Wiggum asked.

"Have you _seen _the soldiers we've been watching? Do _they _look like they have any proper training?"

Wiggum pondered that for a second, "Well there's that one blue soldier."

"Which blue soldier?"

"That one blue chick."

"_Which one_?!"

"The light blue one."

"_Which light blue one?!_"

"Good point." Wiggum conceded, he sat back up in his chair looking worried for some reason but also with a renewed sense of hope. Maybe they _could _turn their lives around. His face lit up, "And hey, we could probably join them, they seem...well they don't seem nice but they seem tolerable."

"Yes! Now you're getting it!" the hope was back in Cid's face as well as this opportunity fell into their lap, "But don't we have to like, you know, send in paperwork and shit about our transfer?"

Wiggum shrugged, "I have no fucking idea how that works. I have no fucking idea how any of this shit works. I mean, how did we even get _this _job in the first place?"

"True." Cid agreed, "Alright then it's settled? New start?" He brought his fist up next to his partner and Wiggum looked at it. It wasn't certain whether he still had that doubt in his mind or he just didn't know what the fuck Cid was doing with his fist stretched out like that, but it took awhile for Wiggum to respond.

But finally he did. Wiggum smiled and bumped his partner's fist, "New start."

Elsa had practically been chasing Anna around her base for five minutes as she paced around aimlessly and to be honest she was getting pretty damn tired trying to catch up to-

"Hey what the hell?! I thought you said you didn't know where the specialist lady was!"

It was right then and there that Elsa finally noticed they had made their way to the room where she had her fight with Sloth and at first she panicked as she got closer to the door, but that emotion soon turned into exasperation when she went inside and saw Sloth sitting on a bed surprised to see the Red Base leader here.

_What is she still doing here?! Has she been waiting for me this whole time?! Why?!_

Elsa and Sloth stared directly at each other with that same look of panic, surprise and understandable shock at this entire situation. As if the redhead in between them didn't exist. The redhead in question was completely oblivious to the dilemma, much more concerned with the one thing that concerned her. She sighed, "You know what? It doesn't matter. I've got what I wanted and that is your complete and utter surrender."

Elsa snapped back into reality and shook her head, "Wait what? I haven't surrendered."

"You haven't surrendered _yet_." Anna pointed out.

"I'm not gonna..." Elsa sighed with complete exasperation. She pinched the bridge of her nose, "What do you even want anyway?"

"Getting to the point, I like that." Anna waved her hands all around her, "I want this."

"You want this room?" Elsa questioned.

"No, I want your base."

"I'm sorry I'm confused."

"Well I mean I don't know exactly how to explain this any further I mean I think I was being pretty clear when I said I want your base but I guess I'll try. I want this giant metal structure thingie with all these empty rooms except for that one storage room that is just full of a lot of stuff by the way, I mean I think I saw a throne in there and then I'll paint the base red obviously because blue sucks and-"

"Alright alright slow down! I meant why are you doing all of this?"

"All of what?"

Elsa slapped her forehead and groaned, "Why the fuck did you attack my base?! And why do you want me to surrender so badly?!"

"Oh, right!" Anna took a deep breath, "Yeah you see I didn't really take too kindly to you guys taking our flag, I totally knew it was you by the way I mean who else would it be, and I _especially _didn't like how you just up and sent a specialist out on us immediately afterwards- hi again, by the way." She waved back to Sloth and she, still confused, politely waved back.

"Anyway if _that _wasn't good enough you decided to take one of my soldiers as a hostage! Why?! Anyway I figured since you did all of _that _to us the least you could do is give us your base and since I knew you wouldn't just willingly give it up I hatched a plan in order for you to _make..._you...give it up. So I sent specialist lady over here to distract you guys while we snuck over to your base and opened fire." Anna took another deep breath as she continued, "And now we're here!"

Elsa had been busy registering this rapid flow of information coming from the redhead's mouth and was trying to find the best way to respond. "Look, I..." she started off, "I'm sorry about all of that but you have to believe me when I say that all of this, everything you just said, was all just a big misunderstanding."

Anna, needless to say, overreacted at Elsa's words and pointed her shotgun right at her face, "And why should I believe you?!"

Elsa's eyes widened at this action and raised her hands up in surrender, "Holy shit! What the fuck, look I'm telling the truth alright? If you just give me some time I can explain everything. Just...put the fucking gun down!"

"You're a coward! And a cheat! Kicking a man...woman...while she's down, who does that?! I don't wanna hear it out of you, I just want your goddamn base!"

Elsa couldn't believe what she was hearing. Why wouldn't this chick listen to reason?! Why was she being so goddamn stubborn?! This was frustrating, and unbelievable and...very very familiar. She looked over at Sloth who still didn't understand what was going on here and gave her a look of understanding and clarity.

_This is what it felt like, huh? This is what it felt like when I just wouldn't listen to a single word you were saying? God, I...I'm such a bitch._

She looked back towards the furious red base commander and opened her mouth to say something but was once again cut off by noises coming from the outside. But it wasn't gunfire this time, no they were voices. And they seemed to be getting closer.

Six soldiers entered the room they were conversing in all talking over each other about some discernible topic and she heard one of them talking monotonously in a language she couldn't make out.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?!" Elsa said. Her voice pierced through the flurry of voices and shut them up as they all stared at the blonde soldier.

"Well hey there Elsa, when did you get here?" Duck asked. 

Elsa didn't answer and instead asked her question once more.

"Short answer? I have no idea." answered Spacecati, "Long answer? We got bored."

"Your long answer can't be shorter than your short answer, dumbass." replied Hikari Oni who had a very good point.

"Shut up...blue person. I'm sorry I never got your name."

"It's Private Hikari Oni."

"Thanks. Now shut up, Private Oni."

Hikari Oni took offense to that and punched his shoulder hard.

"Stop flirting with the enemy, Spacecati."

"Shut it, Cupcakes. Your armor's pink."

"You already said that."

"Well it needed repeating."

"Yeah why _is _your armor pink?" Hikari Oni asked.

"We have no idea. We've been trying to find that out for awhile actually." Bubbles replied.

"Är det här en av de 'Fråga inte, berätta inte' typ av saker?" (Is this one of those "Don't ask, don't tell" kind of things?)

"Okay this isn't about _me_, alright? Why are we making this conversation about me?"

"Will you idiots shut up?! I can't even hear myself think!" Anna cried out with her voice booming over this pointless argument.

Elsa groaned and rubbed her temples, "I'm just...I'm gonna go outside where it's quiet. I'll let you guys sort this out."

And with that Elsa left the base amidst the sea of bickering, with Sloth unknowingly right behind her.


	14. Episode 14

**Episode 14: Sleeping on the Job**

**A/N: Ugh, wow I completely fucking zoned out yesterday and forgot to post an episode. So to make up for that I'm going to be posting two today. Just cause why not. The next one should be out later on today.**

Harmy had woken up from his nap and rushed over to the Blue Base, somehow _not_ seeing Elsa pacing around the top. He looked around inside and was immediately greeted with an abundance of loudness and voices and activity that he didn't expect at all.

Some of the voices he realized sounded eerily familiar.

"So why the hell are there only two of you?"

The voice was feminine, yet confident and demanding. It sounded like Sergeant Anna.

"Yeah, uh...it's a _very _long story."

This voice was feminine as well but it didn't sound familiar. Must have been one of the Blues he was supposed to have introduced himself to awhile ago.

"Well I mean we have a lot of time right now so, uh...you know...entertain us."

This voice was less confident sounding with just the right amount of kissassery. There was no doubt that the voice belonged to Spacecati.

"Yeah there were two other people here but they fell down this magical hole and didn't invite us and now we're stuck here...bored...well I mean I became King and Elsa fell in love with herself so I guess it hasn't been _that _boring but still."

Another voice he couldn't understand. No, like, he _literally _could not understand a word he just said. He just guessed that this was just another Blue soldier.

"Vad var det sista delen om någon kär i sig själv?" (What was that last part about someone falling in love with themselves?)

And of course that monotonous Swedish voice was obviously Miguel. It was then that Harmy realized he had just been standing next to the doorframe this whole time listening to this honestly entertaining conversation. He knocked on the doorframe out of politeness and cleared his throat. The six soldiers, four of whom he didn't understand were here in the first place, looked at him.

"Um...hi? I'm the medic assigned to this canyon and-"

"Did you seriously just knock on the doorframe?" Bubbles interrupted.

"Well I mean it was mostly out of common courtesy so...anyway, I'm here to provide medical services to the Blue team. My name's Harmy by the way."

"Harmy!" Anna exclaimed, "Where have you been? We needed you in the battle."

"I already told you I'm a pacifist." He looked over at the blue soldiers, "I'm also a neutral party so, you know, I need to tend to any blue soldier that needs medical attention and check your vitals and whatnot."

"I bet my vitals are better than yours." Duck bragged, "What's a vital?"

"Well I mean we could have used you a few weeks ago." Hikari Oni said, not listening to Duck like always, "But right now we don't have anyone that requires any medical attention."

"Wait, what do you mean _'_right now'?" Harmy looked around the room, "Uh...shouldn't there be more of you?"

She rubbed the back of her neck, "About that...Elsa went for a walk or something and the other two soldiers are busy being...stuck in a hole or something."

"Wait...you guys were being serious about that?" Cupcakes asked.

Hikari Oni sighed, "Yes...that actually happened. I don't know _how _it happened, but it did."

"And you guys didn't go after them?"

"We...didn't have time?"

Anna scoffed, "See that's the difference between my team and yours..._we _would have _immediately _went looking for a soldier if he fell down a hole."

"But Sergeant Anna, what about Morino?" Spacecati reminded her.

"What about him?"

"We, uh...we never found his body. He could be down wherever their soldiers are!"

"Maybe they're working together!" Duck exclaimed, "Maybe they formed a team to get out of there and called it the RedBlue!"

"Why not Team Purple?" Bubbles suggested.

"Well I mean maybe if Hal Jordan was leading them sure but I don't see how that makes any sense."

Anna laughed, "Yeah that's totally gonna happen. Morino would _never _work with any of you dirty Blues."

Hikari Oni took offense to that and glared at the pompous redhead, "We're standing right here, asshole."

"Why do you think I said it?"

She rolled her eyes and decided not to argue with Anna and instead looked around the room, "So...now what?"

Everyone looked around hoping that someone, anyone, would have some sort of idea as to what they would do next. Apparently the terms of surrender had all but been forgotten seeing as no one on the Red Team brought it up again. After a long, awkward silence Duck's face lit up and he raised his hand, "I've got a _great _idea! But I'm gonna need some help."

"Help?" Bubbles replied, "Help with what?"

"I'm glad you volunteered...yellow person. Now! Follow the Storage Room King! I need your help carrying something."

Bubbles opened his mouth to protest but decided not to. Not because he actually thought that whatever Duck had planned was a good idea, but only because Duck was the only one that actually _had _an idea and there was no way he was staying in that room for another minute and suffer through that awkward silence. With a sigh, Duck followed the eager blue soldier to the storage room.

The Blue Base was filled to the brim with noise, energy, and activity. The rest of the canyon was silent and devoid of any interest or...life. That is, except for a metallic triangle of sorts whose green, low-leveled light had began to flicker and, in a flash, a soldier appeared on top of it.

This soldier in black armor scanned the area and smirked, "Looks like I'm in the right place."

He stepped off and took a better look across the canyon. It was presumably lifeless, he couldn't see or hear any trace of anyone ever living here. He frowned and scratched his head. _Was _he in the right place?

It was then that he noticed a light blue soldier emerge from the top of one of the bases and he was finally assured that he was where he was meant to be. He started to walk across the canyon, feeling across his armor to see that he had everything he needed.

He honestly didn't need much. On the right side of his belt was his holster, housing the pistol he had used to neutralize many enemies before. This was his equalizer. His negotiator. His second to last line of defense. There was no doubt that he would need it today and, barring any interference from anyone who decided to be a hero, he made sure to load his pistol with live rounds. He didn't care who was at this canyon and how innocent they were in this conflict. Anyone that stood between him and Sloth would be dealt with.

On the back of his utility belt was one lone grenade. Or so it seemed. It was round and had a pin of some sorts but those were the only similarities it had to a regular frag grenade. The silver orb was hollow on the inside, the space being filled by a glowing green light akin to the color of the teleporter. This was his ticket out of the canyon. Once he pulled the pin and threw it the orb would form into a temporary teleporter that he could use to get out of here. It only lasted for thirty seconds so he'd have to use it at the most opportune time.

On the left side of his belt was another holster. But this wasn't shaped for a gun. No this was a holster for a different kind of weapon. And as he noticed a certain black-armored soldier follow the other soldier up to the top of the base a devilish grin formed on his face and he pulled the knife out of the left side of his belt. The metal gleamed in the sunlight and reflected that opportunistic and borderline insane smile.

_This _was his last resort. Guns never intrigued him as much as knives did. He liked the look in the eyes of his enemies as the blade impaled easily impaled through their body, the noises they made as their life slowly started to slip away. That was music to his ears. Frazz put the knife back in its holster and stared at the two soldiers on top of the Blue Base, eyes filled with excitement at the events that were about to unfold.


	15. Episode 15

**Episode 15: I'm Sorry**

**A/N: I'm gonna keep this note short and sweet because this episode is just...yeesh. Hope you all, ahem, enjoy it.**

Elsa just had to get out of that damn base. She had been bombarded with too much shit way too goddamn fast and she just needed to clear her head and calm down. And now, finally, she was outside on the top of the base pacing with thoughts just rushing out of her head, needless to say she was not calm.

"Get it together." she told herself. Her arms clutched around her midsection and she was panicking. Why was she panicking? Was it because she just couldn't handle the stress of all the stuff going on? No that couldn't be it, she was...well she wasn't _great _at handling stress but she knew enough not to let it get to her. Was it because she was being forced to give up her base to some psycho, ego-maniacal redhead? No because that would never happen in a million years.

Elsa was obviously dancing around the real problem and she took a deep breath before really confronting herself as to what the big deal was. Needless to say she had been incredibly humbled by Sloth and also in part by the barrel of a shotgun. She had been so obtuse about everything, so ignorant and unable to listen to reason because she was blinded by this broiling hatred for this woman she used to call her best friend.

"Best friend."

It always felt like it was Sloth who didn't deserve that title and now it was becoming increasingly apparent that it was the other way around.

Why?! Why was she so damn stubborn?! Why did it take _this _long for her to connect all the dots?! Why did she have to harbor this unneeded anger and hatred towards this woman who didn't deserve it?! Why...

Elsa groaned in frustration and buried her head in her hands. She mumbled through her fingers, "Why am I such a bitch?"

"You're not a bitch."

She brought her eyes, which had widened in surprise at that unexpected response, out from her hands and looked around to see where that familiar voice was coming from. She brought the rest of her face out of her hands and turned around to see Sloth staring at her with this weak smile, hesitant to move any closer...why? The answer was obvious of course, she was afraid to see how Elsa would react, which just made her stomach churn and make her feel worse than she already was.

Elsa struggled to find a good enough response that wouldn't drive her away or make her hate her more than she hated herself right now. "Um...hi."

Close enough.

"Hi." Sloth replied. She slowly took a couple steps towards Elsa, watching her as she did so.

"You don't have to treat me as some sort of animal. I'm not gonna attack you...again." That came out much more harsh than she wanted to be and she mentally berated herself for that.

Sloth looked down and stopped moving, "Sorry." 

And now she felt like utter shit. This wasn't going well at all and she figured the best course of action right now was to move herself towards Sloth and make everything right, "No, you don't have to apologize. If anyone should be saying sorry it's me. I'm sorry for all of this. I'm sorry for hurting you emotionally and physically and mentally and...I'm sorry for making you feel like shit every second you were here when you didn't deserve any of that. I'm sorry for shutting you out these past three years. I'm sorry that you have such an ignorant, spiteful bitch for a friend."

She brought her hands to her stomach once more and felt hot tears on her face. Dammit, she was crying again. She hated crying. But she just couldn't help it. Her breath hitched and she looked down. She squeaked out one last "I'm sorry."

Sloth brought her hands on Elsa's arms once again and tried to bend down to look at Elsa's face but that proved to be a useless effort. She sighed, "How many times do I have to tell you? You're not a bitch. Far from it. I understand why you felt the way you did."

"How?" Elsa replied weakly, "How could you possibly justify the way I treated you?"

"Because I'm still at fault here. I didn't make an effort to try and find you and make things right. In fact I did the opposite, I tried to _forget _you. I tried to shut _you_ out of _my _life. So you can go ahead and hate me all you want...I deserve it."

Elsa finally looked up and she looked defeated and drained. But those words brought a fury in her eyes, "No! You don't deserve any of this shit! You don't deserve the pain I caused you. You don't deserve those years of thinking I just up and forgot about you." She let out a painful and shaky breath, "If anything...I don't deserve _you_."

"Don't say that Elsa. You deserve me just as much as I deserve you. You're my best friend and that's never going to change."

There it was. Those two words. Those two fucking words. Best friend. After all this time Sloth still felt like Elsa fit that title. She couldn't hold it back anymore.

In a flash Elsa brought herself to Sloth and wrapped her up in the biggest, warmest hug she could muster, almost tackling the poor girl down to the floor. She buried her face in her best friends shoulder, staining it with tears, and kept sputtering out "I'm sorry." over and over again.

At first Elsa was surprised at this sudden outburst, she didn't expect Elsa to show this kind of affection ever again. But then she smiled calmly and returned the hug as best as she could. She closed her eyes and felt tears of joy start to come down her face. "Stop saying sorry you big dummy I've already apologized."

She felt Elsa laugh through the vibrations on her shoulder and she heard her mumble out, "No. I've got three years worth of apologies to make up for so you're just gonna have to wait."

Sloth giggled and complied, pulling her best friend in tighter. For the first time in forever she was happy. Everything was perfect and she wished it could be like this all the time. And who's to say that it couldn't? Who's to say that she couldn't just _stay _here? She sighed contently and looked out at the canyon.

Which was a very bad idea.

A soldier in black armor was getting closer and closer to the base. He had a wide, menacing grin on his face that spelled trouble for the two soldiers still in each other's arms.

"Frazz." Sloth said his name with a mix of fear and anger.

"What was that now?" Elsa mumbled out.

Sloth didn't respond and regrettably pulled herself away from a now confused Elsa.

"Sorry, I...just stay here, alright?"

Before Elsa could respond Sloth had jumped from the top of the base and met with the other specialist halfway. She didn't understand what was happening but judging by that unsettling smile on the man's face Elsa knew that something wasn't right.

Sloth was seething with anger on the inside but tried to look calm and collected on the outside, "So I'm guessing The Supervisor's got you wrapped up in this too?"

Frazz shrugged, "I'm just following orders, Sloth. Something you seem to have a problem doing nowadays."

"I already told him that my mission here wasn't finished and I needed more time."

Frazz looked behind Sloth to the light blue soldier still on top of the base, "What is your mission exactly? Making out with your girlfriend up there?"

Sloth moved to block his view of Elsa, "_She _is none of your concern."

"Look I honestly don't care. What I _do _care about is getting you back to base. Now come on, let's go."

Sloth instinctively looked back, "I'm not going back."

Frazz sighed, "You're _still _not done?"

"No I mean I'm not going back _ever_."

Those words didn't sit very well with Frazz and he looked at Sloth with a look that said he wasn't playing around anymore. He reached over to his right side, "What the hell are you talking about Sloth?"

Sloth noticed the movement and her eyes narrowed, "I'm...done being a specialist. I quit."

Frazz laughed, "Yeah see...that's not going to happen." In one swift movement Frazz unholstered his pistol and pointed it right between Sloth's eyes. Sloth simultaneously reached for her pistol and felt noticed that her holster felt empty. She looked down to see that her pistol wasn't there and she remembered that she had left her pistol back at the Red Base. She was fucked.

Sloth looked back at Frazz who looked at her smug and victorious, "I didn't want to do this, Sloth. I didn't want to resort to violence."

Even with a gun pointed at her Sloth saw the irony in that sentence, "Let's be honest Frazz, yes you did."

"Yeah, you're right. Now come on, let's go."

Any fear that was left in Sloth's eyes had faded away, now replaced by determination and she looked at Frazz sternly, "I'm not going."

"And I don't care what you think. We're going back whether you like it or not."

"Hey!"

A voice boomed from behind them and Frazz looked behind Sloth to see an angry blonde with a gun pointed at him.

"She said she's not going."

Frazz titled his head, there was a certain familiarity associated with this woman. He had seen her somewhere before and he finally remembered where. "Wait a second...I know you!"

"What are you talking about?" Elsa said cautiously.

"Yeah, you're that wannabe specialist who barged into that room three years ago. Oh god you should have seen your face it was fucking hilarious! And the way you just ran out of the room crying? Priceless."

Elsa's face stiffened and her eyes were so filled with rage that they could burn a hole straight through Frazz's head.

Frazz laughed mockingly, "So this is where you've been all this time, huh? Wasting away in this canyon because you failed as a specialist and you failed as a soldier. Pathetic."

There was a cold bitterness in that last word and it stung. Elsa flinched but tried not to make it too noticeable. This son of a bitch was getting on her last nerves.

"Anyway you've had your fun but it's time for your girlfriend here to come back home so if you'll excuse me-"

His words were cut short as a bullet shot out of Elsa's gun and knocked Frazz's gun right out of his hands. Amazingly she didn't hit a single bit of skin. Frazz looked at her with amazement but he quickly changed it to a look of annoyance so as to not give her that sense of satisfaction.

Elsa looked back at him sternly and with such focus that it was almost downright terrifying. "I won't miss next time." she stated coldly.

"I believe you." In a flash Frazz grabbed Sloth who was still stunned at that expert shot and turned her around, pulling out his knife and placing it on her neck.

Luckily Elsa reacted well enough to not pull the trigger and so they stood at a stand-off.

"Put. Down. Your gun." Frazz stated slowly.

"Elsa..." Sloth said her name with slight desperation, "...don't do it. Just take the shot."

Frazz pressed the knife closer to Sloth's neck, drawing blood. She bit her lip to ease the pain. "Are you really gonna take that chance, Elsa?"

Elsa kept the gun trained on him but her resolve was fleeting. She was sure that she could do it but she just couldn't take that risk. She didn't want to hurt Sloth. With serious reluctance, Elsa lowered her gun.

Frazz smiled and reached behind him for that silver orb, his getaway vehicle of sorts, and pulled the pin out with his teeth, dropping the orb next to him. It exploded in a green blast that formed into a glowing green doorway. He put his knife back in his holster and bent down to pick up his gun.

Sloth looked at the makeshift teleporter in front of her and back to Elsa. She was looking down and it was obvious that she was kicking herself mentally for letting things slip out of her control. Asking herself why she didn't just take the shot. Why she let Frazz pull a knife on her friend's throat. Sloth smiled and tried to comfort her, "I'll be fine, Elsa. Don't worry about me."

Elsa looked up and saw the smile on her face, it was sad and fake. It was obvious that Sloth was only saying this to make her feel better and so she tried to return the smile as best as she could.

"Oh, and in case you get any ideas about following us."

Elsa looked past Sloth to see Frazz behind her with his gun pointed at her. Before she could bring up her own gun she felt a bullet pierce through her stomach and shoulder. She doubled over in pain and soon she felt herself falling to the dirt floor.

Everything hurt. Her stomach was warm and wet and she gathered that it must have been the blood. There was a loud ringing in her ears and her vision was already failing her. She heard someone call out her name with horror in their voice and she also heard a thud. In her blurry haze she saw someone drop to the floor and another soldier had picked up their body, carrying them towards some sort of green light and disappearing on the other side. Some part of her mind was still working, not burdened with thoughts of pain and pain and more pain and it told her to follow. To save. With as much strength as she could gather Elsa pushed herself with one hand closer and closer to the light but it disappeared before she could get even remotely close.

"Sloth...no..."

Her good hand reached out to where the teleporter used to be as some last act of desperation and soon everything went black.


	16. Episode 16

**Episode 16: What's the difference between a Doctor and a Medic?**

**A/N: Well, I am so sorry for putting you through all that last episode. But I mean, come on now, you knew it was gonna happen eventually. On the bright side, it looks like everyone's gonna be reunited pretty soon! That's good right? Of course it is, shut up. Enjoy the episode!**

Morino struggled to lift his foot with each step. The staircase was much longer than they had estimated, much _much _longer. It felt like they had been on it for an hour and they still saw no end in sight. Every step now took a massive amount of effort and it left him feeling out of breath. His legs felt like jelly now. And it didn't help that there was a body slung over his shoulders too.

"Why...do _I_...have to carry...this fucker?" he asked through labored breaths.

Hal Jordan, who wasn't doing so well either, responded, "Because...you haven't...carried him yet."

"He's...on _your _team...asshole."

"Does that...really...matter right now?"

Jerome on the other hand felt fine. Well not exactly _fine _but he felt a lot better than the other two. All that specialist training was paying off. "We're almost there...I can feel it." he tried to reassure them.

Morino wasn't completely convinced. In fact he wasn't convinced at all. "How...are...you...so sure?" he questioned.

"Because we've run out of steps."

The two soldiers who had been lagging a bit behind Jerome had finally caught up and noticed he had stopped walking. They also noticed that the staircase had indeed stopped in front of them. In the place of steps was an old, wooden trapdoor above them. The hinges were severely rusted and the door itself was caving in slightly. Who knows how long it had been here.

Jerome rubbed his palms together and then placed them on either side of the trapdoor, exerting as much strength as he could to get it open. With a prolonged and determined grunt the door conceded defeat and opened up with a loud creaking noise, splashing dirt upon the soldiers.

They were greeted by the blinding light of the sun and they all had to shield their eyes, Jerome specifically. After three long years inside a dark, gray cave the sunlight was practically painful. Once the blinding effect of the sun subsided the next thing that they immediately noticed was the beautiful, colorful and almost messiah-like image of the tree. It was as if they had ascended towards the Pearly Gates and the tree was Saint Peter.

Hal Jordan couldn't help the relieved smile that formed on his face as he finally declared, "We're back!"

They ascended the last remaining steps and looked out at their surroundings. There was color, there was light, there was heat that felt surprisingly amazing, and there was fresh air that felt even more amazing.

When Morino finally took that last step the first thing he did was drop Kinofpumps onto the grass and the next thing he did immediately afterwards was collapse onto the floor himself, mumbling out a "Finally..." as he fell.

Jerome looked at the sights before him. The canyon honestly wasn't much to look at but compared to the dull, dreary gray rocks he had been accustomed to it was beautiful. He had missed this. For three years he was stuck in that cave and now he was free. He closed the trapdoor and hoped he would never have to see that wretched place again. Placing his hand on the tree in front of him he finally spoke, "My god, It's been so long since I've seen the outside world. It feels amazing."

"It really does." Hal Jordan agreed, "I actually missed this awful place. I missed the dirt, the grass, that tree Duck seems to care a lot about for some reason, I miss the base too. Which reminds me we should-" His sentence was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot and someone calling out Elsa's name in the distance. Both soldiers looked out to see what the commotion and noticed a soldier collapsing onto the floor, and another one being knocked down onto the floor shortly after. Even at this distance Hal Jordan could see the light blue armor and the blonde hair that signified that the soldier was Elsa. And she was in trouble.

With renewed energy and a grave sense of urgency in his eyes Hal Jordan stormed off towards the other side of the canyon, with Jerome closely behind.

"I'll be right there." Morino weakly called out, "I'm right behind you guys, don't worry." He tried to pick himself up off the floor but he was still weak from the trek and he immediately fell back down.

"You guys all heard that right?" Hikari Oni asked, obviously worried at the implications of the sounds she just heard.

"You mean the gunshot and that one person screaming out 'Elsa'?" Sergeant Anna asked apathetically, "I'm sure everything's okay out there."

"Are you being serious right now?!"

Anna shrugged, "Hey look if you want to go check on your sergeant that's fine. All I know is that all _my _soldiers are accounted for so whatever's going on out there isn't my problem."

"But ma'am what about-"

"Shut it, Spacecati!"

Hikari Oni shook her head, "You guys are unbelievable..."

"Thank you!" Cupcakes exclaimed.

"That wasn't a compliment." she sighed and turned towards Harmy, "You wanna help me check it out? I have a feeling we're gonna need you pretty soon."

"Of course. I mean that's why I'm here in the first place."

"Jag kommer också, det finns egentligen inte något som händer här i alla fall jag menar." (I'm coming too, I mean there's not really anything going on here anyway.)

But before any of them could take another step out of the room three soldiers barged in. One in green with a panicked look on his face as he told everyone to make some room and another in purple who was carrying a badly injured Elsa in his arms.

Obviously this raised a lot of questions but Hikari Oni asked the most important one, "Oh my god what the fuck happened?!"

"I'm not sure." Hal Jordan replied, "I heard a shot and Elsa fell and there were two specialists and...I don't _know_."

Harmy, finally noticing the blood pooling around Elsa's stomach and shoulder, sprung into action, "Alright I need everybody to clear the room!"

Without any complaints most of the soldiers cleared the base, except for Jerome and Elsa's loyal subordinates.

Harmy carefully detached the piece of armor that covered Elsa's midsection and the armor that covered her injured arm, surveying the damage. Blood had quickly stained the sheets underneath her.

Hikari Oni had stumbled onto a chair behind her with a hand over her mouth. This moment hit her like a freight train and left her speechless and frightened. Jerome was leaning on the wall behind him, deep in thought. Hal Jordan was pacing restlessly, feet almost digging into the concrete floor until he finally stopped and loomed over the medic, "She'll be okay right? You'll be able to help her?"

"I...I don't...look there's an exit wound for each bullet hole which means there won't be any pieces of shrapnel floating around which is a _good _thing." He sighed, "But the bullet punctured her stomach and I don't know if I have what I need in order to patch that up and she's already lost so much blood and...I just..._can't _give you a straight answer."

He couldn't tell him just how inexperienced he was at this kind of stuff, he needed to keep that hope alive inside of him. Unfortunately the green soldier reacted in the worst way that he could possibly think of. Hal Jordan grabbed the medic by the collar with both hands and slammed him into the back of the wall.

"Not good enough! You need to tell me right now if you can save her! Can you?! Is she gonna die?!"

There was white-hot anger in his voice and in his eyes. His knuckles were white with the strength of the grip he had on Harmy's collar and he felt the first sign of tears start to pool around in his eyes.

"_Tell me!_"

Harmy decided it wasn't in his best interest to lie anymore. He didn't want to give them any false hope. "Look I can't promise you that she'll make it through. I really _really _wish I could but then I'd be lying. I can only promise you that I will do my damnedest to make sure that she does. Now please...I think it would be best if you all just left and let me do my job."

Hal Jordan gritted his teeth and shut his eyes as tight as he could. This was _not _the answer he wanted. And not the one he was expecting. He opened his bloodshot eyes as tears fell to the floor below them and drove his fist into the wall, just barely missing Harmy's head.

In a shaky and terrifying voice Hal Jordan practically threatened the soldier in front of him, "If she dies...I will not hesitate to rip your head off your fucking neck."

He pushed himself off of the terrified medic and left the room without saying a word.

Hikari Oni, who had been silent this entire time, finally spoke, "Duck's still in the storage room, I'll...I'll make sure he doesn't bother you." And with that she too left the room.

Harmy rubbed the spot on the back of his head that hit the wall behind him and looked at the last remaining soldier in the room. Jerome still had that stern look on his face, "I have a bit of medical knowledge I may be able to help you."

He didn't exactly expect the purple-armored soldier to actually acknowledge him since he had been deep in thought this whole time but even so he nodded and said, "Okay." He was thankful for the help. Harmy picked up the chair that had been knocked down by Hal Jordan's outburst and sat back down.

"Do you have any idea who did this?"

Jerome got up from the wall and walked over to the medic. He had been busy piecing together everything he had seen. The gunshot, the utter ruthlessness of the soldier in black who would just shoot someone in cold blood and knock out a fellow specialist, the temporary teleporter. Even after three years of basically being a caveman he still didn't forget his face. "I actually do. But for now I think we should focus on the task at hand."

Harmy nodded in agreement. This whole situation reminded him of a saying he heard once: "A doctor cures people, a medic just makes them comfortable while they die." He always hated that saying. Four years of medical school and a couple more years of training to become a combat medic and he made it his personal mission to make sure he would disprove that statement. He didn't want his inexperience in the field to be mistaken for inadequacy. He was going to make sure that Elsa would pull through. It was a proven fact that one day he would lose a patient. Whether it be due to a careless mistake or a day where everything was against him and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He knew that day would come.

But today would not be that day.


	17. Episode 17

**Episode 17: Reunion**

Morino had woken up from a nap he didn't remember taking. The last thing that he _did _remember was trying to get up off the grass and then falling back down, noticing how comfortable the grass actually was. Somehow he had dozed off and so he tried to get up from the grass once more. But something felt different, instead of gripping the grass below him he felt himself gripping nothing but air. As his vision began to come to focus a lot more he realized he wasn't exactly on the ground at all. His arms were dangling forward and it felt like something was digging into his midsection. He strained to look and noticed that he was being carried.

"What the fuck?" he mumbled incoherently.

The soldier carrying him stopped and roughly threw him back down to the ground with a painful thud. If he wasn't awake before then he surely was now. "Ow! What the fuck, man?" he asked in a much clearer voice to the soldier in black.

It seemed Kinofpumps had finally woken up and seemed perfectly fine, "Oh good you're finally awake. Now come on we gotta head to my base."

"_Your _base?" Morino asked as he scrambled up from the floor, "Fuck that I'm heading back to _my _base. Look it was fun while it lasted but I gotta get back. I hope they didn't find my snacks..."

"Well that's great and all but you're gonna be pretty damn lonely once you get there." Kinofpumps pointed behind Morino and he turned around.

It seemed like every soldier, red or blue, had gathered around the outside of the Blue Base. But they weren't shooting each other as Morino assumed they would be and like they had been less than an hour before, no they were just standing around and talking.

"What the hell is going on over there?!" Morino asked with a bitterness that came with being in the dark about this entire situation.

"How should I know? Now come on, let's just get over there and see what's up."

"Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming right?" As he said this he turned towards Kinofpumps and punched him hard in the shoulder.

Kinofpumps winced and cried out in pain. "Fucking shit! What the hell was that for?!" he said as he rubbed his shoulder.

"I thought I was dreaming so I punched you in the shoulder to make sure I wasn't."

He couldn't see the logic in that sentence and stared at Morino quizzically and also with anger at punching him for no good reason, "When you think you're dreaming you don't punch somebody else, you ask _someone else_ to punch _you_."

Morino scoffed, "I don't care what dream I'm having there's no way in hell I'm letting you punch me."

Either Kinofpumps didn't hear him or chose not to listen but immediately after he said that he threw a punch at Morino's own shoulder.

"Mother_fucker_!"

"Yeah it hurts doesn't it?! Now stop being an idiot and let's get moving."

"Gah, fine! Shit!"

The two soldiers continued their journey to the Blue base, rubbing their sore shoulders and mumbling in pain.

The outside of the Blue Base held an abundance of red and blue soldiers talking over each other at all once. It was hard to discern who was saying what.

"Why was that blue lady shot?"

"It's obvious we're being targeted by some rebel alliance!"

"Who the fuck was that purple guy anyway?"

"This is all my fault, I should have gotten here faster I should have..."

"Why were we moving a TV from the storage room anyway?"

"Ja, jag ska flytta till denna bas. Det är mycket mer spännande." (Yeah, I'm moving to this base. It's a lot more exciting.)

"Anyone notice that Morino has snacks under his bed?"

Hikari Oni had enough of all this bickering, all this noise, and shouted out past the sea of voices to get everyone's attention, "Everyone shut the fuck up!"

Surprisingly, everyone actually _did _shut the fuck up and stared at the frustrated soldier rubbing her temples.

She sighed, "Look, obviously we're all a bit on edge right now and there are some serious questions that need to answered but we're not gonna _get_ any answers if we all just keep talking over each other."

Hikari Oni had gained full control of the room...grass...outside of the base and so she continued, "Until we get any news on Elsa I think it's best that we just don't dwell on it. Although there are some answers that we can get right now."

She looked over at Hal Jordan, "Where the hell have you been?"

He looked around and realized that as of right now he was the only person in his "group" present and so he had to speak for everyone. "I've been...in a cave."

The rest of the soldiers just stared at him and the stares felt so judging and uncomfortable.

"A cave?" Bubbles asked, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

"Y-yes. A cave. Under the canyon. It's actually really big and gray and...big...and gray..."

"Du lever ett så intressant liv." (You live such an interesting life.)

"How did you survive that fall anyway? And where's Kinofpumps?" Hikari Oni asked weary and genuinely concerned.

"See that's the thing. Jeronimus saved me. He actually saved both of us."

"Jeronimus?" Spacecati asked while gesturing around his face, "You mean that purple guy with the big facial hair?"

"Yeah, that's the one. He let us heal up in this place he had found in the cave. We lived off this weird animal...creature...thing for awhile before finally heading us out. I owe him my life, really."

Anna grunted, "Name's too long and confusing. How about something easier to say, like Jerome?"

"See that's another thing. Why does he have your armor?" Hikari Oni added.

He shrugged, "I don't know. Something about survival and shit. Look does it really matter? I mean..." he knocked on his green chestplate, "I finally got the color I wanted!"

"I guess it doesn't."

Voices could be heard out in the canyon that were getting closer and closer. The soldiers looked to see a soldier in black and another in orange arguing about something probably pointless. Sergeant Anna broke off from the pack and walked fast towards the pair.

"Morino!" she called out angrily, "Where have you been?!"

Morino looked towards the voice and waved his hand, "Hey Sarge! Long time no see! Well it's nice to know that you cared about my well-being and all that."

"Ah, of course I did." Anna exclaimed, "I mean who else was I going to belittle and insult whenever I wanted? Bubbles is too boring. And Cupcakes is...well...yeah."

"I heard that!" Bubbles called out.

"You were supposed to!"

The two soldiers had finally caught up with Sergeant Anna who had one hand on her hip, another clutching her shotgun which was aimed at the floor.

Morino clapped his hands together, "Well Sarge, I'm back! And I'm perfectly fine thanks for asking. Oh by the way this is...uh...shit you know what? I never got your name."

"It's Kinofpumps." He stretched out a hand towards Anna, "Pleasure to finally meet you."

"The fuck kind of a name is that?" Morino mumbled out.

"Shut up, the fuck kind of a name is Morino?"

Morino got up in his face, "You wanna start some shit again, motherfucker?!"

"Bring it on!"

"Shut up, the both of you!" Anna demanded.

The dispute ended as quickly as it started, both soldiers frowning and facing away from each other. Anna squinted her eyes, "Wait a second...are you the specialist that attacked our base?"

Kinofpumps shook his head, "No! Hell no! That was Sloth! Besides I'm not even a specialist."

"Then why is your armor black?"

He laughed nervously, which was odd since he didn't really need to explain himself to this woman he didn't even know. There was just something about her that was so confident yet intimidating. "I...like the color?"

"He's telling the truth Sarge." Morino spoke up, "Idiot doesn't even know how to throw a punch."

"At least I hit harder than you."

"Excuse me?!" Morino felt offended. "I'll have you know that I've been in a fight before!"

"Oh really now?" Kinofpumps asked smugly, "Did you win."

"Y-yes." he replied hesitantly.

"Will you two idiots shut up and head back to the base that'll soon be mine?" Before they could respond Anna had already turned around and walked back towards the base.

"Wait what?" Kinofpumps quickly followed, "What the hell are you talking about? Where's Elsa?"

"Ah, you mean your sergeant? Yeah she got herself shot."

"What?!" he ran fast towards the base, leaving the other two in the dust. He could already see his other comrades gathered outside the base and they, minus Hal Jordan, looked surprised to see him.

"Kinofpumps when-"

"Where's Elsa?! How is she?!"

"She's inside." Hal Jordan said, trying to calm the crazed soldier. "Look the medic's busy tending to her right now so we just have to wait okay?"

"What the fuck happened?!" 

"We don't know! We're busy trying to find that out too, okay? We don't even know the son of a bitch who did this."

"I have an idea who it might be."

The voice had come from the inside of the base. Specifically from Jerome who walked slowly outside towards the curious soldiers.

"Jeronimus! How is she?" Hal Jordan asked with the same frantic tone that had been in Kinofpump's voice mere moments ago.

Jerome looked solemnly at the worried blue soldiers but he was able to change his expression to a relieved smile, "She's fine. The medic was able to patch her up and she should be able to recover but right now the best thing she needs is rest. Uninterrupted rest."

The soldiers breathed a grateful sigh of relief. Including Duck, who had been uncharacteristically quiet this entire time.

"Wait, you said that you had an idea of who you thought shot her." Hal Jordan pointed out.

"I do." Jerome replied. He looked at them sternly and it was clear that the next words out of his mouth were going to be incredibly important, "But I'm warning you right now if it is who I think it is then you are in way over your head if you decide to take revenge." His eyes narrowed, "And I know that you'll want to."

Hal Jordan, who had put it upon himself to be the voice of his team for the time being replied in a much more calm yet menacing tone, "Just tell us."


	18. Episode 18

**Episode 18: FUBAR**

**A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out. It's pretty fucking long and I wanted to get it...well...perfect isn't exactly the right word I'd use but I mean what else can I say. The season is winding down and so I wanna make the last 6-8 episodes really good. So expect the updates to be pretty damn sporadic because of that.**

Elsa wished that she could just die. That when she slipped into her unconscious state she would never have to wake up. That she wouldn't have to deal with anything or anyone ever again. She hated everything about this place. She hated this shitty ass canyon with all its dirt and grass and rocks. She hated the one fucking tree that wasn't even on their side of the base. She hated the base! This awful, dirty, metal base that she had called "home" for so long. She hated every square inch of this place.

And worst of all she hated her troops.

Those lousy, insubordinate slackers who didn't give a damn about anything. She hated how she had to put with all their crap. She hated how they were so unmotivated to do anything and wouldn't listen to a damn word that she said. Always leaving the base without telling her. Always going out on bullshit "missions" without telling her. Always doing _anything _without telling her. It was annoying and rude and she fucking hated it.

There was this nagging little question on the back of her slowly fading mind that she just couldn't get out of her head: Why was she here? On this canyon. With these soldiers that didn't give a damn about her. And the only person that _did _care about her was taken away from her. Why was she here? Well she didn't have to answer that question anymore. In a few moments she would close her eyes for the last time and breath her final breath. All her problems, all her worries, would just go away.

Of course life had other plans. Elsa couldn't even fall into an unconscious state correctly. Time went by in a series of slow blinks.

The first thing she remembered was lying face down in the grass, reaching out for the portal that had disintegrated moments ago. One blink and she saw two soldiers, one in green and another in purple running towards her. Another blink and she saw the green soldier hunched over her, his voice muted and he seemed to be gesturing to someone behind him. She couldn't really tell her voice was incredibly blurry, his face was unrecognizable even at such a close distance. Another blink and she felt herself...floating? Yes she was floating. There was a prodding weight on her back on the back of her knees that made it so her arms and legs dangled down underneath her. She was being carried. Before Elsa could get a good look at the person carrying her she felt herself "blinking" once more. This time she felt herself on a bed. An uncomfortable one at that. There was a strange bareness on her shoulder and stomach, as if someone had removed the armor from them. In her blurred haze Elsa was able to make out four or five soldiers in the room. One of them in green had just shoved another soldier in red and white onto a wall and they seemed to be having some sort of heated argument. Of course Elsa couldn't understand a word they were saying, but surely it wasn't important. Nothing felt very important right now, especially through the dull, aching pain.

One more blink and this time she was finally awake. She stared up at the dreary gray ceiling, the shoddy light fixtures doing their best to illuminate the room. Turning her head, which was a challenge in its own right, she noticed that the room was quiet, but not empty. On the far side of the room sat a red and white soldier, the same one she sort of saw in her nearly unconscious state, leaning back on a chair with his eyes half shut.

If turning her head had proven to be such a daunting task Elsa dreaded even attempting to get up. But it had to be done. A few deep breaths later, or at least as deep as she could make them, Elsa attempted the nearly impossible task of getting up out of bed. One inch of the ground and she could already feel the searing pain coming from her abdomen and she had to drop back down on the bed, letting out a loud and painful groan which woke up the medic from his nap.

Elsa clutched her bandaged stomach as this dull burning pain shot up from her stomach through to the rest of her body. Trying to get up was a horrible idea. In a flash the medic was beside her, panic and guilt rampant in his eyes for sleeping on the job.

"Are you okay?" he asked apologetically. "Oh who am I kidding? Of course you're not okay you got shot in the goddamn shoulder and the stomach."

Elsa looked at the medic as sternly as she could through the agonizing pain, trying to find the right words to say in this situation. The pain had clouded every inch of space in her mind so she just settled with a disgruntled "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Of course Elsa wasn't alright. Even though the physical pain was subsiding there was still an ache washing over her caused by...something else. And she knew what that ache was and why it was happening. This was a feeling that she had been well accustomed to very recently. She could have been practically riddled with bullets and the pain would hurt less than what she was feeling right now.

It was guilt. She felt absolutely guilty. She had blindly hated her best friend for three years, completely shutting Sloth out and making her feel like the absolute worst piece of shit. And then when she had finally apologized for everything she had been shot by that bastard, watching as Sloth was taken away. And all she could do was lie there helpless, unable to do _anything_. This was all her fault, all of this, and it was her responsibility to make things right.

Elsa groaned and brought her good arm up over her eyes, partially in exasperation but mostly to hide the tears stinging the back of her eyes, "How long was I out?"

Harmy pondered that for a moment, "Oh gee I honestly have no idea the sun never sets here. I wanna say about...ten hours?"

"Ten hours?!" Elsa replied and almost shot back up from the bed. Of course she remembered the bullet wound and sat back onto the bed once more, the pain almost coming back in folds.

"Yeah I think it's been about ten hours. The rest of the soldiers are still outside talking about...something I'm not entirely sure. I stayed here to make sure you would be alright when I woke up. I'm Harmy by the way."

Elsa stared at the medic quizically, not knowing what to make of the guy. He seemed like such a babbling fool, then again this babbling fool _did _save her life. Although part of her wished he hadn't. She stretched her good hand out towards him and spoke with a straight face, "Elsa."

"Oh yeah I know who you are." Harmy replied as he stretched out his own hand to shake Elsa's. "Yeah the other soldiers have been saying that for awhile now and so I just assumed that was you and-hey what the hell are you doing?!"

As soon as Harmy had grabbed a hold of Elsa's she launched herself out of bed with his unwilling support, crying out in pain as she did so. He couldn't just drop Elsa back onto the bed and put her in more pain than she was in right now. As soon as she was up Elsa hunched over, gripping her stomach that was punishing her for exerting that much force. She let out a long, seething breath through gritted teeth. The pain was unbearable but she had to tough it out. The hard part, getting up from the bed, was over. Now all she needed to do was walk out of here. That wouldn't be too hard right?

Elsa hooked her left leg onto the edge of the bed followed by her right as Harmy, who still did not agree with Elsa tricking him into helping her, stepped back to give her some her space. Her stomach was practically screaming at her to just stop moving but Elsa wouldn't listen. There was no point in wallowing in self pity and guilt. That wouldn't solve anything. She needed to make things right and not run away from her problems. Sloth was stuck in that damn base against her will and all Elsa wanted to do was say fuck it and die? No, that wasn't going to happen. She was _not _gonna take the easy way out. Not this time. So with the strength of someone who had just gotten a new lease on life she lifted herself off of the bed. Or at least tried to. Try as she might she just could _not _get off of the bed. Not without causing more pain to shoot through her as if she had been wearing some sort of shock belt that went off every time she even attempted to move off of the bed.

"Son of a bitch." she muttered in defeat. Seeing as she had no other options she looked up at Harmy in defeat, "Help me up?"

Of course Harmy's first instinct was to tell her to lie back down and get some rest but the way she was looking at her right now, face losing its look of adrenaline-fueled confidence every passing second, told him that she truly needed his help and there was no way she would accept any answer that wasn't a set of helping hands. Sighing in defeat, Harmy ducked down and hitched Elsa's injured arm over his shoulder and placed a hand at her midsection, lifting her up off the bed with slight resistance on her part. Grunting through the pain and also through the overexertion, Elsa finally got up and almost tackled the medic to the ground with the force in which she leaned on him. Steadying the both of them, Harmy walked out towards the entrance of the base.

"I think..." Elsa started, "I think I can walk on my own."

Harmy scoffed, "Oh please, you couldn't even get out of bed by yourself you are in no shape to walk unsupported."

"I'm serious, I can probably walk by myself." Elsa was being very stubborn about this but she couldn't help herself. She needed to get better and fast. Sloth needed her and that was all that mattered. This pain was nothing. But it was also obvious that she couldn't just barge into the base and demand for Sloth to be set free, at least not alone. But as it stood the four soldiers under her command wouldn't be enough. As much as it pained her to admit, maybe...maybe the Reds could help her. Maybe. But there was a big difference between could and would.

The medic shook his head, "At least let me help you out of the base." Of course he wasn't gonna take no for an answer. For one thing it didn't seem right to just let her go right now, who knew just how weak she was really feeling. Maybe the only thing keeping her going was the adrenaline. And another thing...the entrance was like a few feet in front of them anyway.

Even though it had been approximately ten hours (if Elsa was to trust the medic with his estimate) the outside of the base was _still_ buzzing with activity. Except instead of the jumbled mess of conversations that were taking place hours beforehand there seemed to be a coherent flow of words coming from everyone. Now what kind of topic would bring them all together like this?

"Then it's settled! I expect all of you to be out of my base first thing tomorrow morning."

Of course.

It seemed that the topic of surrender was still being pushed by the red leader and she sounded much more headstrong about this than she did a few hours ago.

"That's not what we agreed to at all!" a voice protested, "And besides we don't want your base, it sucks and it's probably messy and worn-down."

Anna giggled, "Who said anything about you guys staying at _our _base?"

At the entrance of the base stood Elsa and Anna's soldiers, strictly divided and standing in front of each other as if they were preparing for a fight. Obviously they weren't about to fight and you could barely call this verbal dispute a fight. And even if you _did _it was pretty clear that Anna was winning just through sheer stubbornness alone.

"Then we are _we _supposed to stay?" Hal Jordan pointed out, gesturing towards his comrades who were just as angry as he was for more than the reason at hand.

She shrugged, "That's not my problem. Maybe you can stay in the cave!"

Elsa had enough of this. "Hey!" she called out.

That exclamation was aimed at Anna but obviously everyone else turned around to see the injured sergeant leaning on a medic who didn't really want to be dragged into...whatever it was that was about to happen. She pushed herself off of Harmy and took a few cautious steps forward.

Elsa still had her injured arm wrapped around her stomach and her face was constantly switching from a look of exasperation and pain, "You can have my base base...if you can do me one favor."

"Elsa!" her soldiers cried out as they ran towards her, utterly relieved that she looked fine, minus the bandages and the slow way she was walking with that slight limp.

"Elsa, are you okay?" Hikari Oni asked for the rest of her comrades.

She sighed and flashed a smile to her soldiers that they all really needed to see, "I'm fine." There were a couple of "new" faces that she hadn't seen in awhile, "Kinofpumps. Hal Jordan. What took you so long?"

They both laughed nervously. "It's, uh...it's a long story." Kinofpumps said.

Elsa squinted at Hal Jordan's armor, "When did you change the color?"

He pointed towards Kinofpumps, "Like he said, it's a long story."

Elsa giggled, "Well I'm sure I'll get to hear it soon." That smile on her face faded away as she got lost in her thoughts once more. What was she doing? A few hours ago she was saying how much she had hated these people in front of her and now she was laughing with them. Her feelings were still unchanged, she still thought of them as good-for-nothing slackers that didn't give a damn about her. But with each passing second Elsa was finding out just how wrong she actually was.

"Hey! What was that about a favor?"

Elsa looked away from her soldiers and back towards a pouting sergeant with a hand on her hip and a shotgun dangling from her side.

"Oh yes, the favor." Elsa let out a big sigh, she was seriously hoping Anna wouldn't be difficult about this, "I need your help breaking Sloth out of the HQ."

The silence that followed that statement stretched on for an awkwardly long time as the commanding officers just stared at each other, one looking for an answer and another looking, practically begging, for any sign that that heinous favor was just some sort of terrible joke. A certain orange soldier responded as if it was.

"Hahahaha! Are you fucking serious?" Morino cried out, "You want us to stick our necks out for your specialist buddy and probably die in the process?! Yeah...no."

Elsa frowned. She expected that response, though the laughing was a bit uncalled for. Even so she needed their help, even if she had to beg for it. "Look I know this sounds like a terrible idea but I _need _your help. She might die!"

"Woah there, I think you're being a bit over-dramatic." Spacecati said. "She was taken back to HQ against her will but I don't think she's gonna _die._"

"She's my best friend! She doesn't deserve this fate. She told me she doesn't even _want _to be a specialist anymore. Please..." Elsa was practically begging by now, "I need your help."

Bubbles shrugged, "Sorry ma'am but I'm with these guys. This isn't our problem and-"

"I'll do it."

To say this declaration by Sergeant Anna was surprising would be an understatement. She had been shooting at these blue soldiers hours ago demanding that they give her their base and now she wanted to _help _them? This didn't make any sense. I mean it wasn't like she wasn't as lazy as her subordinates were but the whole time they were in this canyon Anna never really had the drive to do much other than boss her soldiers around. And now she wanted to do what was basically a suicide mission?

"Sarge...what?" Morino honestly couldn't say anything else, words were escaping him.

"I said I'm helping them." Sergeant Anna.

"Well I'm not going and you can't make me." Morino added stubbornly.

"I'm not telling you to go." Anna added, "I'm not even asking."

"You're...not?" Morino was surprised, usually Sergeant Anna wouldn't take this kind of insubordination and would have dragged him by the collar to do what she asked.

"Nope, I'm going. That's it. You want to come, then come on. But I don't expect you to. Statistically speaking some of us will probably die."

"Alla av oss." (All of us.)

"But that's not what's important." Anna stared at her soldiers intently now with that look of a born leader, willing his troops into battle. "Let me ask you guys a question: You ever wonder why we're here?"

Morino and Spacecati looked at each other. That question seemed all too familiar to them. "Umm...it _does _seem to be one of life's great mysteries." Morino answered.

Her gaze was now on Morino specifically, "No I mean why are _you _here, Private Morino? You're a condescending smartass who hates taking orders and doing just about anything. And yet you were the one who wanted to charge in headfirst without a plan to take revenge on Bubbles being kidnapped."

"Aww, you did?" Bubbles asked.

"And why are _you _here, Private Bubbles? You're completely apathetic about this entire situation and it doesn't seem like you even wanna be here. You could have left at any time and yet you didn't. Why is that?"

Bubbles looked at his feet and away from Anna, embarrassed at just how correct she was.

Her gaze now turned towards the maroon soldier, "And Private Spacecati, why are _you _here? You want to be like me so bad for some reason, trying to follow in my footsteps and get in my good graces...what for? Is it cause you want to be a sergeant just like me? You could have been given your own squad at any time so why are _you _still here?"

Before Spacecati could answer that she had already averted gaze towards Cupcakes, "Private Cupcakes! Why are _you _here? You got shot in the goddamn foot by your own comrade you have every right to just up and leave this place on the grounds that we are all just terrible shots. Why are you still here?"

Cupcakes looked at his injured foot, not knowing how to properly answer that.

She now looked at her squad as a whole, smiling, "Maybe you're here cause this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here cause you don't have anywhere else to go. Maybe you're all here cause deep down you _want _to be here."

And now she looked out at the rest of the soldiers situated outside the blue base, "The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here. For all we now, Sloth is probably dead."

Elsa frowned at that, "Look I know I said that she might be dead but I have to admit I _was_ being a bit over-dramatic-"

"The way I figure it..." Anna interrupted as she began to walk towards the blue commanding officer, "they don't expect us to do anything about this situation. They just expect us to go back to doing nothing just like we've been doing this whole time. Those bastards don't think we're real soldiers capable of putting up such a big fight."

She was now right next to Elsa and roughly placed a hand on her injured shoulder. Elsa winced slightly but Anna didn't even notice and looked at her excitedly, "Well...guess I'm interested in showing them exactly what a big fight is all about!"

She looked back at her soldiers once more, "So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even asking. You all do what you gotta do."

For a moment, no one spoke up. They were all still busy registering those amazing motivational words they didn't expect Anna to say at all.

Spacecati took a step forward and beamed at his commanding officer, "I'm in."

Bubbles hesitated for a moment but moved forward as well, "Let's show these bastards who's boss."

Cupcakes followed eagerly and planted his feet forward eagerly, "Hell yeah! Let's do this shi-ow my foot!"

Miguel stepped forward as well, "Jo du lämnade mig ur ert tal, men jag antar att jag är i för." (Well you left me out of your speech but I guess I'm in too.)

Suddenly all eyes were on Morino, the last holdout. Seeing all these faces staring at him, waiting for his answer, left him no choice. He sighed, "Well I mean I'd look like a complete asshole anyway if I wasn't the only one going. So I guess I'm in too."

"Excellent!" Sergeant Anna exclaimed. She looked back at Elsa, "Well I guess there's your answer. We'll be heading back to our base to get ready."

Elsa smiled gratefully, she was very surprised that the red leader would be so on board with this idea but it wasn't her place to question why. She gave Anna a warm, incredibly thankful smile.

"Thank you."


	19. Episode 19

**Episode 19: The Armory**

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed that excessively long previous episode. I know I enjoyed writing it...for the most part. Like I said before these episodes will probably take a bit longer to put out because, well I mean look at the lengths on these. They're pretty goddamn long in relation to the past stuff I've written. In other news, big fucking thank you to Thedoctor24601 for his amazing review. It was nice and heartwarming and I fucking loved reading every bit of it. Also how could I not notice it I only have like two other reviews on this thing. So yeah, enjoy the episode. I'll try and put out the next one as soon as possible.**

With the Red team back at their base the blue soldiers finally found themselves alone in their own base. Of course the circumstances weren't that great but still they rejoiced in this suspended moment of peace and quiet for as long as they could. But instead of relaxing and taking it easy they found themselves loading ammo cartridges and fixing up their weapons.

"I still can't believe we're actually doing this." said Hikari Oni as she loaded a magazine into a pistol.

Kinofpumps grabbed a couple grenades and put them on his belt, "Me neither. Although you have to admit this is some pretty exciting shit we're getting ourselves in."

"I wouldn't exactly call the prospect of us dying _exciting_." said Hal Jordan. He had been busy inspecting an assault rifle, as for what he was looking for he wasn't entirely sure.

"Well I'm sure Elsa has this great plan set up so we won't have to worry about that!" Duck replied.

Hal Jordan took a break from his pointless inspection to look at Duck, "Hey, uh...Duck what are you doing?"

On the table in front of Duck stood a mannequin, a motorcycle helmet, and a couple cans of blue spray paint. "Hmm? Oh, well see I already loaded up _my _gun and I had this great idea to build a dummy!"

The rest of the soldiers stopped what they were doing as well and stared at him because, despite all the time they had spent together, this was literally the dumbest idea Duck had ever come up with ever.

"We are about to raid our own headquarters..." Hikari Oni stated slowly, "and you're busy making...a dummy." Those last two words were said in a way to reassure herself that this was actually happening and that this wasn't all some sort of idiotic dream.

"Yup. Just in case we need it in the battle." Duck didn't say anything else and instead got to work on spray painting the stuff in front of him.

The other soldiers knew better than to further question Duck's train of thought and so, with a heavy sigh from all of them, continued with whatever they were doing beforehand.

"Ow! Bitch..." Elsa winced as she felt a bandage tighten around her bloody shoulder, the pain situating itself around the gaping bullet wound.

"Sorry." Harmy said, "But it would probably hurt a bit less if you didn't move around so damn much." He continued to work on replacing the bandage and, once finished, went to work on putting back the pieces of armor he had taken off. They were back in the room that everyone in the canyon seemed to gravitate towards to. Sitting on the bed Elsa had been passed out on recently.

They weren't alone in this room though and Elsa turned her head away from her burning shoulder to look at the purple-armored soldier sitting down on a table where an unfinished card game laid untouched. "I don't think we've been properly introduced."

Jerome smiled, "We have not. My name is Jeronimus. I'm a specialist. Well I mean I _used _to be. Honestly my situation is very confusing at the moment. I helped your soldiers get out from under the canyon."

Elsa didn't let his words go unnoticed, "Wait a second. You're a specialist?"

He sighed, "I've been under this canyon for three years. I'm not sure I can really call myself a specialist anymore."

Elsa shrugged off that fact, "That's not important. The point is you _were _a specialist, yes? So then you know who this Frazz person is?"

Jerome's face turned dark and foreboding and he nodded, "I'm not gonna try and talk you out of this. In fact I'd like to join you. But I have to warn you...I don't think you want to mess with-"

"Frazz? Oh don't worry that son of a bitch is gonna get what's coming to him." Elsa said as she gritted her teeth.

"Oh I'm not talking about Frazz. I'm talking about his boss, _our _boss. The Supervisor." There was a twinkle in his eye, a sudden realization, "Wait a second, I remember you! From three years ago. You were in that room when Sloth was being initiated into the specialist program."

Elsa looked down at her feet, an automatic frown formed at that memory, "Yeah, uh...I remember that day. And...I think I remember who he was. He was the man shaking Sloth's hand."

Jerome nodded, "I'm warning you now he's not a man you want to cross. You _will _regret this, he is merciless and cruel and-"

"So he's the one to blame for all this?"

Jerome didn't expect that question, "Y...yes?"

Elsa's face in turn also turned dark and foreboding, matching and even surpassing the intensity Jerome had on _his _face, "Then I guess I'll have to pay him...a visit once we get there."

"Now hold on there." Jerome cautioned, "I think you're getting a bit in over your head. You can't just expect to kick down his door and kick his ass, that's just not gonna happen."

"Do you know where his office is?"

"Well yes I do. I mean it's been three years but I still remember just how to get there but-"

"Good, then I'm gonna need you."

"Wait, what?"

"You said so yourself, you want to join us on this suicide mission. Well I'm gonna need you when we're there. I may have spent an awful long time there but I've _never _seen the office of The Supervisor. But you have."

Jerome wanted to protest some more but decided that his efforts were futile against the driven blue Sergeant. "Fine, I'll lead you to his base."

Elsa smiled, "Thank you." She turned back towards the medic, "Can you help me up?"

Harmy had just finished placing the pieces of armor back on and obliged, wrapping an arm around her waist and letting her arm drop onto his shoulder, lifting the wounded soldier up.

This concerned Jerome, she didn't seem fit to even _walk _let alone fight. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, this is nothing." Elsa reassured him, "I just need help getting up that's all."

She lifted her arm off of Harmy's shoulders and walked forward, "I mean I don't exactly plan on doing any heavy lifting either."

He was still worried, although he decided not to question Elsa any further. It was obvious she was dead set on making this happen. But the only problem was...what exactly was _"this"_? "So...what's your plan?"

"I, uh.." Fuck, Elsa knew she was forgetting something. "I...don't know."

Jerome looked at her much more seriously now, "You've got almost a dozen soldiers ready and willing to go through with this and you don't even have a _plan_?!"

Elsa winced at those words. They were cold and bitter, but they were also the truth. "To be honest...I didn't actually think they would say yes."

"You need a plan! You need to know exactly what you're doing! You can't just barge in there and start destroying the place!"

Elsa's eyes lit up and she smiled, "Or maybe we can!"

Jerome was confused, "I'm sorry, I'm confused." See?

"Start heading over to Red Base, I'll go gather my troops and tell them the plan."

Before Jerome could protest Elsa was making her way to the armory as quickly as she could. It didn't take long for her to reach the place, well I mean it _did _because she was still injured but...you get the point. She surprisingly didn't hear any arguing or bickering or any sounds or signs of mass chaos, just the gentle clicking of magazines entering their respected guns and some sort of spraying sound. When she entered the armory she noticed how calm and collected they all looked, determined and itching for a fight. She had never seen her soldiers like this and it made her feel so proud and amazed. Even the fact that Duck was...spraying a mannequin for some reason didn't faze her.

"Are you guys ready?"she asked, getting their attention.

The soldiers looked at her. "I..think we are?" Kinofpumps replied.

All eyes were on Duck now who continued his...job, "And...I'm finished!" He lifted up the mannequin and showed it to everyone in the room, obviously proud of his...innovation, "Pretty cool, huh?! I can't wait to use it in the battle."

Elsa didn't question Duck, in fact the word "battle" reminded her that she needed to address something first before everything went down.

"Oh that reminds me..." Elsa realized she didn't know exactly how to word this, "I, uh...I...I need to ask you all a question. That is...I need to ask the same question that red sergeant asked her troops. Wh-why...why are you all here?"

Elsa knew she completely fucked up asking that and it wasn't exactly the right question anyway but she was hoping her soldiers would see past that. And for the most part they did. Or at least Elsa thought they did. She took their blank, intrigued stares and their inability to answer that question as a sign for her to continue.

She cleared her throat. Confidence was key if she was gonna pull this off correctly. Motivation was something that her troops needed right now, they were risking their goddamn lives on this mission the least Elsa could do was give them some words of encouragement. Of course the question "Why are you all here?" wouldn't exactly hype them up like a bunch of football players before a big game unless Elsa worded this carefully.

"I mean...Hikari Oni you're in the same boat as that other guy, always following me around and acting like me. Why? So you can understand what it's like to be a Sergeant? So you'll be ready to lead your own squad? Well let me tell you that you're ready and you've _been _ready for a long time so...why are you still here?"

Hikari Oni looked down, blush forming on her cheeks due to the flattery.

"And Kinofpumps..." Elsa sighed, "As much as I hate to admit it you would make a damn fine soldier. I mean not good enough to do that black armor proud but...you're getting there. So why are you still here? Why aren't you putting your talents to better use?!"

Kinofpumps didn't exactly know what to say. He was shocked at the praise and was left searching for the right words himself.

"Why are you here Hal Jordan? I mean why would you put up with my unwillingness to give you what you wanted? You could have just asked to be sent to another squad and they would have gladly given you your green armor. And now you have it! So why are you still here?!"

Finally she turned to the standard blue soldier who looked at her eagerly, "And Duck...it's, uh...nice to see you?"

"Thanks." Duck replied, "I'm really enjoying the speech so far."

Elsa couldn't help but smile at that and turned to look at her squad as a whole, "I need to ask this because you're all about to put your lives on the line and you don't have to. I need to wonder why you're still here. Because if what that red sergeant is true, and you're all here because you don't belong anywhere else or because you actually want to be here, well that's fine by me."

Kinofpumps raised his hand, "Elsa I hate to interrupt but...why are _you _here?"

The question was asked with curiosity, meant not to accuse Elsa of anything. The soldiers looked at her eagerly waiting for a response.

Her mind flashed back to her vulnerable state, to when she had just been shot. That feeling of hopelessness, despair, wanting to just give up. She remembered asking herself that same question. Except back then she didn't exactly have an answer. Partially because she hadn't been in any position to think clearly.

But now she did.

"I guess...the reason I'm here is..._I_ have nowhere else to go."

Elsa herself felt blown away by her own honesty, it was refreshing but it also hurt. Being completely and brutally honest with herself, this was a first.

"I...wasn't cut out to be a specialist. Don't get me wrong, I think I was totally _ready _to become one but it's just...they're not soldiers, they're mercenaries. Hired guns who never actually cooperate or converse with anyone else. They have no friends, no allies aside from themselves but specialists rarely ever work on jobs together. I guess I didn't want that."

"Sloth was my best friend and when she 'betrayed' me I was scared. I didn't want to be alone again so I asked to have my own squad out of desperation. Any squad. And so they sent me here."

She sighed, "So I guess that's why I'm here. Because even though you all may be the most insufferable, lazy assholes I've ever met, you're also all I've got. And I'd take dealing with you idiots over being alone any day."

Wow, she had completely fucked up the ending of her speech. There was no way she had instilled any sort of drive or motivation in her troops, especially since she had just called them idiots. Goddamn she was awful at this.

Elsa felt a hand on her shoulder and she raised her head which she had lowered out of embarrassment, Kinofpumps was looking at her and, most surprisingly, smiling.

The smile turned into a cheeky grin, "Let's go save your girlfriend."

Elsa pouted, "She's _not _my-"

"Ah, I'm just messing with you!" Kinofpumps interrupted, "But we probably should head out. They're probably waiting for us."

Elsa nodded and looked into the armory once more, "Oh that reminds me."

She walked closer inside and stepped in front of a drawer, pulling out a rectangular box, "We're probably gonna need this."

"What are they?" Hal Jordan asked.

She pulled out some sort of tiny device from the box, "Ear pieces. You know, in case we ever get separated and need to group up somewhere."

She tossed an ear piece to everyone. Hikari Oni scrutinized it closely, "How are you even sure these are gonna work inside that massive headquarters? Like what's the range on these things?"

Elsa shrugged, "I think it's best that we just don't question it."

"Fair enough, I guess."

"Oh, also..." she pointed to the gun to Hikari Oni's left, "I'm gonna need your pistol."

She instinctively clutched the pistol she had spent this whole time loading and inspecting, "Wait what? Why?"

"Well I can't exactly use one of the rifles now can I?" Elsa said as she shrugged, although only one of her shoulders actually exhibited the full range of motion, the other only raising slightly.

Hikari Oni frowned, "Well then what am _I _supposed to use."

Elsa smiled as if she knew Hikari Oni would ask that question, "I've got you covered." She walked over to one of the drawers and gestured for Hikari Oni to come closer. When she got close Elsa slowly opened the drawer, watching as Hikari Oni's face lit up in sheer shock, joy and downright excitement.

"Are you _serious_?!" Hikari Oni gasped.

Elsa nodded, "Just...take good care of it alright?"


	20. Episode 20

**Episode 20: Nameless Assholes**

**A/N/: I'd just like to clarify that yes this is the last season of PBC. Writing two fics at the same is fucking hard as hell and I'm starting school again in like two weeks so I don't need that added stress. Don't worry I'm not gonna half-ass the ending and I'll try to keep it as open-ended as possible in case there's ever a demand for a Season 3 and most importantly if I have _time _to write it. The way I'm looking at it I should be wrapping this up in 5 more episodes (not including this one) so...yeah. Hope you enjoy it! (p.s. I'm a dude)**

Bubbles looked at the ear piece handed to him, scrutinizing the piece of metal as if he was fascinated with it for some reason. Although he shouldn't have been, it was really just a regular old ear piece, nothing really fancy about it and there's no reason he shouldn't just put it on and stop questioning why he was given the thing in the first place.

Finally he _did _put it on with a bit of a struggle and looked around the top of the red base, watching his comrades put on their own respected ear pieces given to them by the blue sergeant who stood next to her own troops, itching to get this show on the road.

"So, uh..." Bubbles started, "Shouldn't we...I don't know...learn each other's names?"

"That's a great idea, Private Bubbles!" Anna replied, "Why don't you start?"

"Well I mean you already said my name so I don't know what else I'm supposed to-"

"Ooh! My turn!" Cupcakes interrupted, "Ahem, my name is Cupcakes and before anyone asks my armor is lightish red! Not pink! Yeesh!"

"I don't think anyone was gonna ask that, but okay..." Spacecati said, "Anyway my name is Spacecati and I am the second-in-command of Red Team."

"Wait what?" Morino asked. He knew he missed a lot being under the canyon for so long but he didn't expect Spacecati of all people to get that kind of promotion, "When the hell was this?"

"At the, uh...at the last staff meeting!" Spacecati replied smugly.

"When do you guys _ever _have time for a staff meeting?"

"That's what I said!" Bubbles exclaimed.

"Okay shut it both of you." said Spacecati.

"Shut it, _all _of you." Sergeant Anna demanded as she glared at her soldiers with a pout that was two parts adorable and three parts terrifying. Once they had quieted down, which took all of two seconds, she pointed an angry finger at Morino who got the gist of what she was trying to say and reluctantly obliged.

"Hi, uh...my name's Morino and...well that's pretty much all you need to know." Morino said lazily as if he didn't want to be here at all. And he probably didn't.

Sergeant Anna squinted at the orange soldier, "Morino..."

He put his hands up in defense, "Hey look I honestly have no idea what else you wants me to say. I mean I already said my name so-"

"Where's your gun?"

"Oh is that all?" Morino said as if he was expecting to be grilled on his awful introduction, "Well see I don't need one anymore now that I have this." He reached for the handle of his sword and swung it downwards. The handle erupted into a buzzing blue light, it took shape in the form of two parallel blades that looked sharp and intimidating and yet also very intriguing.

The soldiers around him looked at the sword in awe except for of course Hal Jordan, Kinofpumps, and Jerome who were already acquainted as to what this sword was and what it did.

"Where the fuck did you get that?!" Spacecati asked as he took a step away from Morino.

"In the cave. Pretty cool, huh?" Morino swung the sword around a bit and everyone else instinctively backed away. As if the sheer act of swinging this foreign sword in the air would cut all of them into tiny pieces of assorted reds and blues.

"Dude, stop waving that thing around you might get us killed!" Bubbles cautioned, "Do you even know how to use that thing?"

"My sword?" Morino asked, bringing one of the blades dangerously close to his head as he held it up for emphasis, "Fuck yeah I know how to use it. What's there to understand about swish swish stab? It's a fucking sword dude, it's not a fighter jet."

"Even so, I still don't think I trust you with that thing." Spacecati replied, "Maybe you should give it to someone more responsible. Maybe even someone who's...I don't know...a higher rank than you. A certain second in command..."

"Pssht, no fucking way I'm parting with this thing. If you want one then _you_ get a fucking giant metal box dropped on your head."

"Oh come on! We were gonna get you out of there eventually!"

"You replaced me with some Russian robot!"

"Jag talar svenska, ni okunniga kuk." (I'm speaking Swedish, you ignorant dick.)

"See, even Miguel agrees with me!"

"Jag vill faktiskt att svärdet för mig själv så skruva er båda." (I actually want that sword for myself so screw the both of you.)

"See he said you should give the sword to me!"

"And how the fuck would you know what he's saying? You don't speak Swedish!"

"Yes I do! I took Swedish in high school!"

"Oh bullshit you took Swedish in-"

"My name is Duck and I hate babies!"

All eyes were on the blue armored soldier who had thankfully interrupted the rather pointless argument that was going on. His face was eager and excited as all these people stared at him with utter confusion and also relief on their face. That conversation was going for way longer than it needed to be.

"Yes! I am Duck! I am part of Blue team!" he held up the mannequin he had been holding this whole time that no one bothered to question for some reason, "And this is my friend! I call him...hmm, you know what I actually haven't figured out a name for him yet. Ooh, also! Can I borrow some leaves from your tree!" he said as he pointed to the tree in question, "I need to camouflage him for the battle."

"Camouflage?" Spacecati spat back, "We're gonna be raiding a fucking base what would you need camouflage for?"

Before Duck could answer Hikari Oni brought a hand up to interrupt him with her free hand, "I think it's best if you just don't question it and let him take some leaves from your tree."

Spacecati sighed and rolled his eyes, "Fine, whatever. Not like we really need that tree for anything."

"Great! I'll be right back." Duck said as he ran down the base towards the tree.

Hikari Oni cleared her throat to get everyone's attention, "So, uh...yeah...my name is Hikari Oni and..." She wasn't at a loss for words because she was shy or nervous about this whole ordeal. No she was distracted and also excited. Because dangling heavily from her right arm, reaching from her elbow to just barely grazing the floor, was Elsa's sniper rifle. Unable to contain her excitement anymore she brought it back up to clutch it with both hands and presented it eagerly to the other soldiers, "Look at this shit! Isn't this fucking cool?! I finally got the fucking sniper rifle. Finally after all this time I-hey!"

Kinofpumps had brought a hand over the sniper rifle and lowered it while simultaneously pushing Hikari Oni away, "Keep it in your pants, Hikari Oni. Anyway hi my name is Kinofpumps and before you all ask, no I'm not a specialist I just...I like the color black I guess would be the best answer in this case."

"Great speech, you really moved me to tears." Hal Jordan said sarcastically, "Well I guess I'm the last one. Hi, my name is Hal Jordan and...no that's about it. Come on let's get this show on the road!"

"Not just yet!" Sergeant Anna exclaimed. She turned towards Elsa who had been standing next to her and looked at her so calmly and collected. And then she grinned at her, which made Elsa feel just the tiniest bit uncomfortable not knowing what it was the redhead had planned. Thankfully it wasn't anything malicious or mischievous, all Anna did was stick out her hand towards Elsa and smiled at Elsa.

"My name is Anna, commanding officer of the Red Team!"

Elsa stared at the outstretched hand in front of her. It wasn't that she didn't trust the red sergeant who's name she just found out was Anna. She didn't have any reason _not _to trust her. But in the short time Elsa had known this woman she had shot at her soldiers, demanded Elsa relinquish her own base and pressed a shotgun to her face. Of course she _did _practically redeem herself in Elsa's eyes with that amazing speech that led us to where they were now and...why was she being so hesitant again?

In a flash Elsa stretched out her own hand and met Anna's, both hands gripping together as she smiled back at Anna.

"I'm Elsa, commanding officer of the Blue Team."

"Oh yeah, I knew that already. Your troops over there kept saying it over and over while you were unconscious."

The smile quickly went away from Elsa's face, replaced with a look of surprise and also mild annoyance. The sweet, tender moment was now gone, Anna had thoroughly killed it with her blunt statement.

Elsa blinked, "Wait what? But..."

"Alrighty, let's get going!" Anna pulled her hand away from Elsa's and turned to walk towards the teleporter. But something stopped her and she looked back, "Oh by the way what's the plan?"

Elsa was still caught up in that ruined moment that she didn't hear Anna at first. This headstrong stubbornness of hers, and the way she could change from that compassionate and kind figure back to her blunt, commanding self in no time at all was almost...fascinating. No, scratch that, it _was _fascinating. She had some sort of admiration towards this sergeant, Anna was the complete opposite of her. Where Elsa was unapproachable, bitter, and a bit stuck-up. Anna seemed to gravitate towards everyone, did whatever she wanted and didn't take no for an answer. Elsa was always so exasperated and annoyed with the situation she was in. Anna took advantage of the position of power which in turn made her very bossy and demanding. In a good way.

In other words, Elsa was an ice cold bitch and Anna was a...burning hot bitch. And together made one big steamy bitchy mess.

Together? Where did that word come from? Why was Elsa thinking about them together? Could it be that Elsa was...maybe...falling for...

"Hey! Earth to Elsa! What's the plan, dummy?" Anna asked as she rapped her knuckles on the preoccupied sergeant's forehead.

Elsa snapped out of her weird thoughts and decided then and there that there was no way in hell she had any kind of romantic feelings for this girl. She would make an excellent teammate that's for sure, but a love interest? Hell fucking no.

She sighed, "Well first and foremost we need to get Sloth out of there, that's a given."

Anna nodded.

"Well chances are we don't exactly need...twelve people for that." she said as she counted the amount of people actually on this mission which was, needless to say, a baffling amount, "Jerome and I actually know the layout of the HQ so I'm gonna take him to find Sloth and deal with some more...personal stuff."

"Okay so...where do we fit in all this?" Spacecati asked.

"I was just about to get there. See I need the rest of you to do what you all do best." Elsa said.

"Sit around and do nothing?"

"Get stuck in a cave for weeks?"

"Lyft tunga föremål?" (Lift heavy objects?)

"Play bridge?!"

"For the last time Duck it was poker and you suck at both."

Elsa groaned, "God shut up, all of you. You're all wrong anyway. I need you all to fuck shit up. That's all. Just go in there...and fuck shit up."

"Oh!" she heard most of the soldiers say collectively.

"Well I'm all for _that _plan." Cupcakes said eagerly.

Elsa smiled, "Alright then. Let's get in there and, well...fuck shit up, I guess. Give these bastards one hell of a fight."

The soldiers compiled in front of the teleporter. Due to its small frame they all had to go in one at a time but that didn't seem to be much of a problem. They weren't going to be in some sort of squad formation they were just gonna get in there and tear that place apart.

Morino sighed from somewhere in the middle of the line, "You know what? I miss the old days, when we _didn't _risk our lives, and you guys were just a bunch of nameless assholes."

"It's okay." Kinofpumps replied somewhere at the end, "We hate you too man."

And so there they were. Reds and Blues finally working together as if it was due to fate. Or more specifically due to a long and convoluted chain of events that all started due to a broken teleporter that turned your armor permanently black. And now they were back at a teleporter once more, fixed by a medic who decided to come along as well only cause he needed to get back to HQ anyway since his job here was done. And then fixed once more by a Swedish talking robot who somehow actually knew what he was doing.

A Swedish...talking...robot.

Looking at the rest of the soldiers individually you could obviously tell just how much of a misfit they all were. A gruff yet well-kept looking man who had been stuck in a cave for three years living off some sort of rat thing. A soldier downright obsessed with the color green for some reason. Two soldiers who boasted much experience in the field of kissassery. A sergeant with some twisted Napoleon complex. Duck.

And yet putting them together just made sense. Together they weren't misfits, together they were just...people. They were all a little fucked up or else they wouldn't be there. In that canyon. Working together to take down their employer. And even though they entered the teleporter one by one, they were still doing so together. And they would be together when they reached the other side.

Or so they thought.


	21. Episode 21

**Episode 21: Breaking and Entering**

Of all the places they could have locked Sloth up in they chose her room. The room that she spent basic training, specialist training and every other waking second with her best friend in the whole world.

Why?

Did they trust her enough not to break out of here? That's obviously not true, they probably don't trust her at all. Did they think it was some bullshit half-assed attempt at being poetic? Knowing Frazz and how much of an arrogant son of a bitch he was and especially knowing The Supervisor, that was probably the case.

Sloth was lying back on her old, messy bed looking at up at the depressing ceiling. It had been a few hours since she had woken up from being knocked out and she had spent all that time just lying there, thinking.

And thinking.

And thinking.

And where did those mindless hours of thinking get her? Well for starters she obviously needed to get the hell out of here. Staying here just wasn't an option, it wasn't their right to keep her here when she didn't want to be. She wasn't some damsel in distress locked away in some tower, no she was specialist dammit! Of course that word meant nothing but betrayal and absolute douchebaggery to her now but even so she was a specialist. A person trained for these kinds of situations. The best of the best, no matter how laughable that sounded right now.

But how? How was she going to get out of there? Was she just gonna break down her door and take down every damn soldier that got in her way? As intriguing as that sounded Sloth knew that wasn't going to happen. With her luck The Supervisor put just about every damn soldier on her floor so it would be a pain to even make it past a single hallway.

There were a couple vents that looked like she could fit through but with her bulky armor it would take a hell of a long time to do so and she would be making a lot of noise, so those were out of the question.

The only option Sloth had left was the window that overlooked the entire base. It wasn't barred or locked or anything, it was just a regular ordinary window so there was nothing to stop her from climbing out of it and escaping. Nothing except for the fact that her room was about five stories up and was the only one with an actual window to climb out of on her floor and the next two floors down. It was an incredibly odd and frustrating design flaw. But this was the most logical way out without getting maimed by bullets or suffocating inside a vent.

Sloth begrudgingly got up from her bed that was actually getting very comfortable and walked towards the window, slightly hidden behind the familiar metal desk that...that she and Elsa once shared. Unable to help herself, Sloth looked over to Elsa's bed. It was just as messy as hers, she never bothered to fix it up when Elsa left for good. In fact she didn't even _touch_ Elsa's bed since that fateful day. The way Sloth saw it that was her punishment, not touching the only thing left to remind her of Elsa, she saw it as a way to make her never forget her betrayal. But things changed since she had last been in this room. For starters she had finally seen Elsa again! Unfortunately their first interaction in years had been Elsa punching her in the face. But Sloth _did _get her back for that with a nice slap to the face, although almost immediately regretted doing so. Either way it had all worked out in the end and they were able to hug it out and everything _should _have been fine. But they weren't. If everything was fine Sloth wouldn't be staring out a window with Elsa's sheets clutched in her hand.

Wait...what?

When did that happen? When had she grabbed Elsa's bedsheets? When did she do the one thing she wouldn't have allowed herself to do even a few days ago? Sloth guessed that when she had told herself that everything was finally okay she had subconsciously grabbed at Elsa's bedsheets as if it was some sort of comforting hand. Except these sheets weren't comforting at all. They were thin and scratchy and how the hell had they been sleeping on these sheets for years without noticing this?

That was the least of her worries now. Sloth reluctantly let go of the sheets and gripped the desk on both sides, pulling it out so she could get a better look at the window. It was large enough that she could fit through pretty easily but, just as she already knew, there wasn't a single windowsill close enough for her to drop down to. And it wasn't like she had any sort of rope or harness or anything for her to rappel down with. She sighed and was just about ready to give up when she heard a window open above her. Directly above her actually. She also smelled what seemed like...cigarette smoke?

She looked above her and saw a soldier kneeling on his windowsill taking a drag from his cigarette, and her training kicked in.

"Hey asshole! Why the hell are you smoking?! You're a soldier for god's sake!"

The soldier looked down wide-eyed at the irate specialist below him and, without saying a word, closed his window. Sloth had noticed his face flush and the color drain from his face before doing so and she couldn't help but smirk at that. When he had closed his window, though, Sloth had noticed the other windows above his. And there were plenty. In fact there were enough windows for her to maybe...

Sloth sighed, it seemed that the only way for her to go down...was up. She would get to a higher floor, one where there were hopefully less soldiers, and find an elevator or something to get herself to the bottom of the base. After that...well who knows? She would probably just wing it.

Taking great care not to look down, Sloth propped herself up on the windowsill and began her ascent.

A blinding green light engulfed Elsa as she walked through the teleporter and came out the other side, hoping she would be transported somewhere even remotely close to The Supervisor so she could tell him where Sloth was, whether he wanted to or not.

Unfortunately when Elsa came out the other side it seemed like she wasn't even close to being anywhere near The Supervisor's office. And what's worse is that no one had followed her through the teleporter. She was alone in...where was she anyway?

There were shelves and drawers stocked to the brim with various guns and ammo. Different rifles hung from these open shelves beckoning for Elsa to let them be the one to have their barrels pointed right between The Supervisor's terrified eyes. Obviously she couldn't use any of them for one obvious reason and she gripped at that obvious reason with her good arm, feeling the throbbing pain underneath her fingers. She toughed out the brief moment of pain and waited for it to subside, hopefully this wasn't going to be a reoccurring trend. The last thing she needed right now was an injured shoulder screaming at her every five minutes.

Inside a few other shelves were sets of flak jackets that probably would have come in handy but there was no way she would be able to hook any of them on with her bad shoulder, and besides it wasn't like Elsa expected to be in a large enough firefight that there would be grenades exploding a couple feet in front of her.

The only thing inside this armory, which seemed like a much larger version of the armory back at the canyon, that she could use to her advantage were a few large crates, each housing a plethora of pistols and magazines that she would probably need. She took a couple of magazines from one of the crates and put them on her utility belt.

Someone had tumbled out of the teleporter, which was situated in the middle of the armory and resting on a wall overlooking the whole room and Elsa turned around to see who it was, hoping it was Jerome so that they could continue with the mission.

Unfortunately when she turned around, hoping to find a purple armored soldier behind her, she instead was greeted to the sight of a bumbling pink-armored soldier clutching his foot in his hands and hopping on the other.

"Ow! Fuck! I think I landed wrong on my bad foot! Ooh, this hurts..." Cupcakes squealed.

Elsa was confused and also sorely disappointed. In the back of her mind she was expecting something like this to happen, some sort of faulty wire or just plain old bad luck would cause all the soldiers to teleport to different places across the HQ, but she had hoped that she would at least be paired up with someone less...someone she'd spent time with before. One of _her _soldiers.

Thankfully one of her soldiers _did _come out of the teleporter. Unfortunately their momentum caused them to tackle the pink soldier and send them crashing to the ground in a hilarious pink and light blue mess.

"Gah, get the fuck off me!" Hikari Oni said.

"I'm trying!"

"Well try harder!" 

"Hey now! Who's the one with the injured foot here?"

"Oh yeah? Well who's the one with the pink armor here?"

"That's not-what does that have to do with anything right now?! And it's lightish red!"

Elsa had had enough of this, "_What _are you two doing here?"

The two soldiers looked up at the scrambled mess they had found themselves in and saw an irate and hurting sergeant above them, nursing a wounded shoulder with her fingers. Hikari Oni was the first to pick herself up off the floor, grabbing Elsa's sniper rifle which had stumbled onto the floor with her.

"Oh, uh...hey there Elsa. I, uh...didn't expect to see you here?" she stated, trying to make sense of the situation they were in.

Honestly Elsa wasn't really in a position to be...basically interrogating the two equally-as-confused soldiers and so she let quit with the hostility, "You know what? It doesn't matter right now. We should probably get out of here and continue on with the mission. Stock up on ammo, find a better gun, do whatever you need to. I'm gonna try and contact the others."

The two soldiers nodded in agreement and eagerly looked through all the supplies like they were kids in a candy store.

Elsa peered out the door to the armory to check out just where in the hell they actually were inside of the headquarters. All she could really see was a hallway and at the very end was what Elsa believed to be a large elevator, the ones used to transport large amounts of cargo to and from the armory they were in she guessed. That seemed to be the only way out of this place.

She closed the door and pressed a button on her ear piece. Light static erupted from the ear piece but quickly subsided as she spoke, "Hey! Can anyone read me?"

Only two seconds had passed when Elsa heard a reply coming from the other end.

"Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear...Elsa? That's your name right?" a cheery voice questioned.

This should have made her relieved if not for the fact that she heard that same voice right behind her. She turned around and stared daggers at the pink soldier who was busy eyeing a sleek-looking battle rifle, "Shush you! Go back to...doing whatever you're doing and get off the radio!"

She turned back around and pressed the button once more, "Can anyone copy?"

"Yeah, I hear you loud and clear, Elsa."

Elsa was relieved to hear a familiar voice that _wasn't _Cupcakes, "Oh thank god. Kinofpumps, is that you? Where are you and who are you with?"

"I am...I don't know but I can see like trees and soldiers and a bunch of vehicles. I think this is some sort of garage. I'm crouching behind a car with tusks or horns or whatever with Duck and Morino."

"Tell her I said hi." she heard someone say.

"Duck says hi."

"Elsa? Where are you? I was waiting by the teleporter and you never came out."

This voice sounded much more gruff and man..ish. Obviously belonging to the muttonchopped specialist that should have been right next to her.

"Jeronimus! There must have been something wrong with the teleporter and we all got transported to different places."

"Hej jag fixade det! Om du idioter inte överbelasta det som du gjorde det här aldrig skulle ha hänt." (Hey I fixed it! If you idiots didn't overload it like you did this never would have happened.)

"Wait..who's with you right now? And where are you?" Elsa questioned.

"Well as you probably heard, the Swedish speaking robot is next to me. And so is Harmy and...your name is Bubbles right? Anyway yes I think we're in the mess hall. It's thankfully deserted right now but even so I think we're gonna have to get moving soon."

"I think so too." Elsa agreed.

"Hey! Elsa! Where the hell are you and when do we start blowing stuff up?"

That bossy, demanding tone could have only belonged to one soldier. "Anna? Is that you? Where are-"

"Yeah yeah I heard you the first couple of times you asked." Anna interrupted, "I'm with one of your guys. Hal Jordan I think is his name. And Spacecati. We're in some sort of...command center I'm guessing and there's two other people here that look terrified. Then again I _am _pointing my shotgun at them..."

Elsa groaned. This was going to be a lot harder than she expected it to be. But even so the show had to go one, even with all these bumps in the road.

"Alright look..." Elsa started, "I know things haven't exactly gone according to plan but we still have to carry out the mission. Granted we're all pretty damn spaced out but that can't stop us. I still need you all to make as much noise as possible to act as a distraction. Actually, you know what, this works out much better. You can all divert attention to much more scattered parts of the HQ, which means all the soldiers will be spaced out looking for all of you."

"And how do you suppose we start making noise?" Spacecati skeptically asked.

"Try some dance moves! Ooh, you could do a musical number!" Cupcakes suggested.

"Get off the radio, Cupcakes!" both Elsa and Anna growled.

Elsa sighed, "Jeronimus, while you're all making as much noise as possible I'm gonna need you to guide me towards The Supervisor's office."

"Where are you right now?" he asked.

"I'm in some sort of giant armory."

"Is there an elevator at the end of the hallway?"

Elsa nodded, "Yes there is."

"Ah, well then I know _exactly _where you are."

"Oh, thank goodness! Alright, you all know what to do now, I hope?"

She heard various forms of affirmation coming through her earpiece. It seemed like everyone was on the same page once more.

"Got it, Elsa."

"Yeah, let's go fuck some shit up."

"Jag är inte ansvarig för eventuella handlingar friendly fire förresten." (I'm not responsible for any acts of friendly fire by the way.)

"Okay I don't know what you just said but I heard 'friendly fire'. Should I be worried?"

"Okay, I'm on the radio too now. This is fun! What do you want to talk about?"

"Dammit Duck, get off the radio!"

Elsa couldn't help but smirk at the, what she saw to be, friendly banter, "Well then...let's go make some noise."


	22. Episode 22

**Episode 22: There Will Be Fireworks**

**A/N: Ooh, you have no idea how fucking awesome it is to write these last few chapters. Just watching as shit blows up and bullets fly, it's fun to write. Of course there's that nagging feeling that I'm ending this soon but...let's just not dwell on that for now. Once again thank you for reading this fanfic, it means a lot and be sure to review if you want. Because I need some more constructive criticism.**

"Well then...let's go make some noise." the voice in Anna's ear piece chirped.

"Will do!" Anna replied.

She released the button on the ear piece and turned to look in the direction her shotgun was aimed at, in between two gray armored...soldiers? Anna wasn't sure, but they _were _wearing armor. Though they didn't look the types to charge into a battlefield, guns blazing. Behind them were several stacks of papers strewn about all over their console which seemed to be monitoring...wait, was that a canyon?

Was that..._their _canyon?

Anna squinted at the men, "Alright first things first...why are you guys watching our canyon?"

"Y-your canyon? You mean you're one of the people that live...down there?"

"Yes. I am." Anna replied coldly.

"Well, uh..." the other gray person spoke up, "I mean we've been stationed here for awhile actually. I wanna say...you know what I actually don't know, it's been awhile."

"So what you've been monitoring us?" Spacecati asked behind his irate sergeant.

"Well...yeah. That's our job. We're one of those people that monitors stations that soldiers are assigned to."

"I'm finding it hard to believe that's an actual job..." Hal Jordan said.

"Well yeah, neither do we."

"What did you see?" Anna asked. Well...more like demanded.

"Nothing you didn't want us to see."

"That's not what I..." Anna sighed and dropped her shotgun back down towards her side, for one thing she was wasting precious time that they could have been using to shoot up the place and also because her arm was getting tired from holding a shotgun with one hand. "What are your names?"

"Well my name's Cid." Cid replied and pointed to his partner, "And this is Wiggum."

Wiggum dropped his hands that were raised in surrender and frowned at Cid, "You know I could have said that..."

"Alright then Cid, Wiggum...can you set off any alarms from here?"

"Alarms? What for?" Wiggum questioned.

"Just...it doesn't matter right now. Can you set off any alarms? And if so how many?"

Cid walked back to the console and brushed all of the papers off with one hefty sweep, they all landed in a thump on the concrete floor with more than a few of them floating down gently, "Hmm...well I mean I'm pretty sure if we just press all the buttons here that's bound to set off a few alarms."

"It's so comforting to know we were being monitored by two bright individuals." Hal Jordan said sarcastically.

"Well then what are you waiting for?" Anna asked.

"Fine we'll do it! If you can do the both of us just one favor..." Cid said.

Anna raised her shotgun once more, "I don't think you're in any position to ask for favors right now."

"Look it's nothing serious." Wiggum cautioned, finally knowing what it was his partner was getting at, "It's just...we, uh...we want you to take us with you."

Anna's brows furrowed. This seemed like a very odd favor and she still wasn't entirely sure what they were asking of her. "You want us...to take you with...what?!"

"Look we're sick of just sitting here and watching you guys do shit we could be doing." Cid explained, "We don't wanna waste away watching on the sidelines. We wanna be soldiers just like you guys."

"Soldiers?" Spacecati chuckled, "I wouldn't go so far as to say _that_ but..."

"Yeah we could tell that much." Wiggum added with his own chuckle.

"What was that now?" Spacecati demanded, advancing on the smug-looking...person.

Anna intervened just in time, placing herself in between the two before they could tear each other apart, "Alright alright! That's enough, you two!" She pushed her soldier back and looked to the two men at the console, "You know what? Yeah, you can come with us. As long as you set off as many alarms as possible."

Their faces lit up at Anna's decision and so they got to work pressing every single button on the console, hoping that it made as much noise as possible.

She turned back to the green and maroon soldiers who looked to be itching for a fight and smiled, "As for us, let's get out there and start shooting _everything._"

"Can do, Sergeant Anna!" Spacecati exclaimed.

Hal Jordan smirked, "Let's teach these sons of bitches a lesson."

Jerome peeked behind a corner, scanning the area to see if there were was anything that could impede their path. After a few seconds he decided that the coast was clear and motioned for the other soldiers to move forward.

The hallway was strangely desserted and they were able to walk around with ease without having to worry about any soldiers knowing of their presence. So with the time he had Jerome pressed the button on his ear piece, "Elsa? Are you on the elevator yet?"

"Yeah, we're all on." she replied.

"Good, what's the highest floor it goes up to?"

"Uh...the 45th floor."

"Damn, that's right I forgot. The elevators only go up to Floor 45. Once you get up there you're gonna have to find the stairs and take them all the way up the 50th floor."

"Wait what?" Elsa asked, "Why don't they go up to the top floor that's so dumb."

Jerome shrugged, "It's a terrible design flaw I know. The Supervisor spent more time and money on his office than he did on the entire building."

"I can tell." Elsa said. Jerome could literally hear the pout on the other end, "So how's it going on your end?"

"Surprisingly well actually. We haven't run into a single soldier yet which is amazing and also very suspicious."

"Well be careful, you don't want to walk into any ambushes or traps or anything." Elsa cautioned.

"Will do. Let me know when you've reached the 45th floor."

"I will."

Jerome looked around the hallway just as the other soldiers were. Opening doors cautiously and looking inside, which seemed like a bad idea all around. They would probably alert someone of their presence.

"All these rooms are empty. What gives?" Bubbles questioned suspiciously.

"I don't know. I haven't been in this part of the headquarters before. Then again I spent most of my time in the medical wing."

"Why would they put all the medics and doctors in one part of the base? That seems highly irresponsible."

Miguel surprisingly wasn't being his usual sarcastic self, he instead took to looking through a large glass window almost...entranced. Jerome took note of this and walked over to the robotic soldier, "Do you see something?"

"Vilken skillnad skulle det göra om jag sa? Du kan inte förstå mig." (What difference would it make if I told you? You can't understand me.)

"Actually..." Jerome chuckled, "I _can._"

"Vänta ... du förstår mig?"(Wait...you can understand me?)

Jerome nodded, "Now what is it?" He walked over to the window and immediately found what had caught Miguel's..."eye". Inside he noticed a large room filled to the brim with what looked like generators. Enough to power about half of the building.

"Those are...a _lot _of generators."

Miguel nodded and Jerome could hear the motors in his neck whir as he did so.

An idea formed in Jerome's head. Since he couldn't help guide Elsa towards The Supervisor he had to carry on with the other part of her plan. He smirked, if something were to happen to these generators...well then that would surely get more than a few soldiers to come running in here to find out what the hell happened.

Jerome smirked, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Förmodligen inte." (Probably not.)

He frowned, "You know what? It doesn't matter. I've got an idea."

Kinofpumps tossed a blue grenade a couple feet into the air, grabbing it with his outstretched palm.

Morino flinched instinctively, "Dude, be careful with that!"

He smirked, "Ah don't worry you pussy, these things don't detonate unless you press a button on its surface. And even then you've got about five seconds till it actually goes off. Here, catch!"

Kinofpumps tossed one of the grenades to Morino who stared at it with shock and terror as it arced its way towards him. He was so nervous that he couldn't get a good grip on the thing and fumbled around with the sucker in an honestly hilarious fashion before _finally _getting a good grip on it.

He stared daggers at the black-armored soldier who was laughing quietly under his breath, "I fucking hate you."

"I know you do." Kinofpumps said after catching his breath. He looked at Duck with this warning gaze, "Duck, can I trust you with one of these things?"

Duck, who had his rifle in one hand and the mannequin in the other, nodded, "But I don't exactly have any extra hands right now..."

Kinofpumps sighed, "Fine I'll hold onto yours for now." He peeked out from behind the Warthog they had found themselves behind.

"So what's the plan, genius?" Morino questioned.

"I'm thinking...I need to find out where I can throw this so that it does the most damage." Kinofpumps pondered. There were Warthogs placed all around this vast warehouse but they were too spaced out to do any major damage. A few Mongooses lined the walls of the warehouse as well and they could make a lovely chain of explosions but Kinofpumps didn't think he had that good of an arm to throw the grenade what seemed to be the length of a football field.

He did see a cluster of Warthogs bunched fairly close together that would make a wonderful explosion that would surely get everyone's attention. But he didn't think one grenade would do the job.

He turned back around to look at the soldiers behind him, "Psst, Morino. I'm gonna need your help."

"With what?"

He gestured Morino to come closer and get a better look. Once they both peeked out of the corner of the Warthog Kinofpumps pointed at the cars parked fairly close to each other, "I'm gonna need you to throw your grenade all the way over there. And make sure you hit it close to the middle so it makes a really large explosion."

"Oh yeah sure, I can totally throw that far." Morino replied sarcastically.

"Look, just try your best alright? We need to make as much noise as possible and this'll do just that."

Morino rolled his eyes, "Fine! Alright so what button do I press?"

Once Kinofpumps showed him the intricacies of the sticky grenade they readied their throwing arms, aiming them towards their hopeful destination, "Alright, now press it and I'll tell you when to throw, got it?" 

"Yeah yeah, I got you." Morino pressed a button on the grenade and heard a click and a hiss, signaling that it was indeed live. And they had at most five seconds to release them.

"Now!" Kinofpumps exclaimed after what seemed to be the longest second in Morino's life and he sent that grenade flying without any hesitation, just wanting it out of his hands for good.

The two blue glowing grenades flew through the air in a lovely but deadly arc, one noticeably lower than the other and in no time at all they had made their way to their destination. One of them had landed squarely in the center of the bundle of cars. The other landing nowhere near them and instead planting itself on the cold, concrete floor.

Kinofpumps turned back to the orange soldier and raised an eyebrow, "Seriously?"

"Hey shut up, alright? I didn't spend my time as a soldier _actually _doing soldier shit."

Before they could argue any further they heard a loud and satisfying explosion behind them, shrapnel flew, fire crackled and there was frantic screaming coming from all directions as they tried to find out exactly what caused that explosion.

Which is exactly what Kinofpumps wanted, unfortunately their job wasn't done. They needed to keep the heat off of Elsa and a simple explosion wouldn't suffice.

He readied his battle rifle and smirked, "Alright you guys, let's start shooting shit up."


	23. Episode 23

**Episode 23: Learning by Doing**

**A/N: Don't mind the title of this episode...let's just chalk it up to me not knowing what the hell to call it.**

Sergeant Anna walked quickly down the corridor with Hal Jordan and Spacecati in tow. Behind them lay a pile of limp bodies that they had made quick work up. "They" of course meaning Sergeant Anna mostly, who cocked her shotgun once more and pulled the trigger on another soldier who dare impeded her path. Alarms and sirens blared over their head and all around them.

Hal Jordan leaned in slightly closer to the maroon soldier and whispered, "Don't you think this is a bit fucked up?"

"What do you mean?" Spacecati whispered back.

"I mean, like...we've killed _a lot _of soldiers so far. More so than needed. Aren't you at least a _bit _disturbed by that?"

Spacecati shrugged as he stepped over another body that Anna had downed, "They shot at us first. I just chalk it up to self-defense."

"But Anna shot first. That soldier just asked us what the hell we were doing here and she just blew him away like it was nothing."

Another shrug, "It's best just not to dwell on it and keep shooting."

"_Keep _shooting? We haven't unloaded a single bullet yet." Hal Jordan retorted as he too stepped over another body. He faced forward once more and noticed that they were in front of a set of elevator doors.

"Ah! Here we go!" Anna exclaimed.

"Umm...Sergeant Anna, where are we going?" Spacecati asked while looking around, making sure there weren't any soldiers that could follow them.

Anna pressed the down button on the pad next to the elevator,"Well the way I see it the big boss man has got to be on one of the tip-top floors of this place and he'll be heavily guarded. Now obviously we don't Elsa running into much trouble on her way up so the way I see it if we keep wreaking havoc on the lower floors that'll cause some of the soldiers up there to come down here."

A dinging sound now accompanied the loud alarms as the doors opened, revealing five soldiers who were just as surprised to see the three waiting for the elevator as they were to see them. Without hesitation Anna brought up her shotgun and unloaded the shell into the nearest soldier and the two soldiers behind her followed suit, finally pulling the trigger on the guns that had been practically ornamental at this point.

The soldiers went down without any resistance and the three were left without a scratch but also with empty magazines. Once they had dragged all the bodies out of the elevator they took the time to finally reload their guns.

"So..." Anna said as she loaded more shells into her shotgun, "What floor?"

Before anyone could answer they all heard static coming from their ear pieces and then...explosions? And gunshots as well.

"Hey, uh..." a voice said through the ear piece, "If anyone can hear this, we could use some help."

"Kinofpumps?" Hal Jordan spoke up, "Where the fuck are you guys?! And what did you do?!"

"I...may have underestimated the sheer amount of soldiers down here. We're pinned down behind a Warthog and we seriously have nowhere to go and we could use some backup."

"Where are you?!"

"We're in a warehouse full of vehicles on the ground floor, at least I think so. So, you know, the faster you get here the better."

"We're on our way." Hal Jordan walked to the panel and pressed down aggressively on the button that said "1".

"They sound like they're in some serious trouble." Spacecati said, actually fairly worried.

"Yeah." Hal Jordan agreed, "We gotta get down there."

"No I mean they sound like they're in some _serious _trouble."

"I know! That's why we're going down there to help them."

"No I don't think you get it. They've gotten themselves into some serious shit and we're about to be caught in the crossfires. We...we could die."

Yeah and they could die if we don't go down there and help them." Hal Jordan argued, "You knew the risks this mission entailed, you knew you would probably die if you came along so I guess it's time to nut up or shut up."

"I think the both of you should shut up right now." Anna interrupted.

"Why?" Hal Jordan asked.

"Because...we're slowing down."

And indeed they were. The problem was they were nowhere near close to the ground floor.

Anna cocked her shotgun once more and stepped back from the door, "Be ready for anything."

The two soldiers took their places on either side of the sergeant, weapons aimed at the door menacingly, waiting for them to open so they could greet their intruders. The air was tense in the cramped car as it creeped slowly to a halt. The high pitched ding sounded off as the doors opened and the soldiers tightened their grips on their guns as they waited to open fire on the soldiers that had been harassing them this whole time.

Strangely when the doors opened all the way they weren't greeted to the standard forest green armor that they had grown accustomed to. No instead there was an assortment of purple, brown, yellow, red and white that had their guns trained on anyone that came _out _of the elevator.

Hal Jordan lowered his gun immediately, "Jeronimus? Holy shit, you scared us. What are you all doing here?"

Jerome lowered his gun as well and breathed a sigh of relief, "You all heard that right? Kinofpumps and the others need our help. We were gonna use the elevator but we heard it coming down and...well you know the rest."

They walked into the elevator which now became a lot more crowded with four more bodies in it and continued their descent.

"So, I'm assuming that the teleporter brought you guys over to this floor?" Spacecati, who had been squished into one of the corners of the car, asked.

"Yup." Bubbles replied. Oddly enough they had both gotten stuck in the same corner, "Where did you guys go?"

Hal Jordan shrugged, which was hard to do since there were two soldiers, Harmy and Miguel, that restricted a bunch of movement, "It's...not important right now. We should just worry about getting down there and helping them out."

Jerome, who luckily found himself in the middle car where there was more space, turned to Anna who was right next to him, "So do you have a plan?"

"Of course I do." Anna replied smugly, "Run and shoot. And don't die."

"That's your plan? Just run and shoot?"

"And don't die!" Anna corrected.

"Right." Jerome sighed, "Well I guess if things don't work out we have a backup plan."

"Wait...what kind of backup plan?" Spacecati asked curiously, "What did you guys do up there?"

"Nothing that concerns you yet. For now we should just worry about the task at hand. Even so, Harmy do you have the detonator?"

Harmy pulled out a small device from his utility belt, there was a blinking red light shining from it and a red button on the top. "I sure do!"

Hal Jordan stepped back as best as he could, "What the fuck?! Why do you have a detonator?!"

His question was left unanswered though as the elevator doors opened and they were greeted to the sight of soldiers scurrying about, more alarms blaring and in, in the distance, a large fire.

Kinofpumps flinched as another bullet whizzed past him, this one got way too close to his ear and it terrified him.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, "That was _way _too close."

The three soldiers found themselves stuck behind yet another Warthog, dodging gunfire from every direction and returning fire themselves. Except for Morino of course, who kneeled with his sword at the ready, "Any more bright ideas, boss?"

"Shut up, I'm thinking alright?" Kinofpumps moved slightly out of cover to return fire at the bastards shooting at them and spraying the last of his magazine, "Fuck I'm out." He felt around his utility belt for another magazine but to his dismay he didn't have any more that were full. "Fucking shit, I'm all out of ammo. Morino, hand me a magazine."

"Wait what? I didn't bring any magazines!" He waved his sword around a bit to prove a point, "You think I need any ammo for this thing?"

Kinofpumps groaned and leaned back on the bullet riddled Warthog just as another bullet introduced itself by completely shattering the side mirror right above him, showering him with glass shards.

"Fucking shit!" he exclaimed as he protected his head from any large pieces. He looked towards his blue armored companion, "Duck! You have any extra magazines?"

"Nope sorry, I'm out of crayons too!" he yelled out.

"What? Crayons? Your gun shoots crayons?!"

"...don't all of yours?"

Another few bullets interrupted their conversation as they slammed into the side of the Warthog that they weren't behind. At this rate it wouldn't matter how much armor this thing had. There were so many bullet holes that they had to contort their bodies to find a safe spot from all the firing.

"I've got an idea!" Kinofpumps exclaimed. He brought out the last grenade he had left from his belt, "I'm gonna throw this somewhere where they're all heavily populated to try and scatter them. While they're distracted I need you all to run to another Warthog. Morino you try and get close to them so you can use that sword of yours."

Morino sighed, "Seems...easy enough."

Duck raised his hand eagerly, "Ooh! Ooh! Can I throw it?! I haven't thrown a grenade yet!"

Kinofpumps hesitated, "Duck I don't think..."

"Oh come on! You said you were gonna hold on to that one for me anyway!"

"I..." he sighed, "I did say that." He gave up the grenade and placed it in Duck's eager hands, "Fine. But remember you've only got one shot at this. Don't fuck it up."

Duck tossed the grenade into the air and smiled, "Ah don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He pressed the button that turned it on which was a good sign. Maybe he _did _know what he was doing. But any kind of hope of that was soon dashed when he reeled back his arm and heaved it!...right onto the the passenger side door...of the Warthog...that they were hiding behind.

"That was the worst throw ever. Of all time." Kinofpumps stated bluntly.

"Not my fault." Duck rebutted, "Someone put a car in my way."

Luckily they all knew that they were in serious, immediate danger and had the know-it-all to move the hell out of the way, diving in different directions to escape the imminent blue explosion.

Kinofpumps had found himself backed against one of the walls of the warehouse surprisingly and hastily ducked under a mongoose. It didn't exactly provide enough cover but he was seriously hoping that the soldiers had become confused at the blast and couldn't pinpoint his exact location.

He looked to find his comrades and saw a streak of orange duck behind another Warthog, but it quickly fled away from his field of vision. If Morino was smart he would have taken Kinofpump's orders very seriously and would start to advance on the soldiers while they tried to piece together what just happened. But he knew he couldn't do it alone, he would need backup. But without any ammo he couldn't really do much. From the Mongoose though he could see more than a few downed soldiers still clutching their own rifles, if he could get close enough to one of them he could snag one and give some covering fire. He took one last look around, there was the flaming wreckage of the vehicle they had used for cover but that was about it. He couldn't see Duck anywhere, all he could hope for was that _he _was smart enough to find some decent cover and stay put.

He got onto his belly and started to crawl as quietly as possible towards one of the soldiers. In his quest to be as quiet as possible he overheard a few of the soldiers talking.

"Did...did you just fucking see that?"

"It blew up!"

"I know but that explosion...it was blue. These things explode into a blue flame right?"

"I don't think so. That didn't even look like a flame, it was like some sort of...plasma?"

"Alright that's enough babbling. We gotta go find these sons of bitches and take them down. And pronto!"

Kinofpumps finally reached one of the guns and took it, slinking behind another Warthog as he did so. He checked the cartridge and frowned, the bastard had only left him with half of the bullets left. He'd need to use the ammo sparingly or force himself to crawl and find more ammo. He wasn't sure if he had time for that second option.

Without much of a hassle he was able to find Morino on the far side of where he was situated, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. He was all ready to give the go-ahead signal until he saw that even more soldiers were just about to enter the fray.

Fuck, this wasn't good. Kinofpumps had counted beforehand the amount of soldiers they would have to deal with and they seemed to be a good enough amount to take down with just the two of them but now? Forget it. They would have more luck just surrendering right then and there, which wasn't really an option right now.

Everything seemed to be lost now, he had no idea what the hell he was going to _do_. He didn't have enough ammo to take down all of them and he didn't exactly trust Morino to be able to take down all of these men single-handedly. They were sitting ducks out here and it would only be a matter of time before they...

"Hey, I found them!"

_Fuck_.

Kinofpumps pressed himself closer onto the car, gripping onto the rifle like it was his lifeline. Because right now it technically was. How could he have been so careless? Did they see a foot peek out from behind the Warthog? He was betting that that was the case and he mentally kicked himself for being so stupid. And now! Now he'd have to fight his way out, with a gun that was low enough on ammo to begin with...he was probably going to die. No, he was _absolutely _going to die. And he didn't really like the prospect of dying that much, at least not without a fight. So he gritted his teeth, placed a slightly shaky finger on the trigger and pushed himself off of the vehicle, ready to die in a blaze of glory as he rushed through the endless waves of soldiers.

Or so he thought. But that moment would not come, at least not now. Instead when he emerged from the Warthog he was greeted with the sight of...no one. Except for the orange soldier far away who looked equally as confused. Where had the soldiers all gone?

Suddenly he heard shouting and lots more gunfire and so he ran to where the source of the noise was coming from, with Morino right on his tail. They didn't really have to get very far and what they saw made Kinofpumps grin from ear to ear.

Backup had finally arrived.


	24. Episode 24

**Episode 24: The Big, Epic Fight Scene**

**A/N: So you know how I said I would be ending this on Episode 25? Yeah I lied. As it looks right now I'm gonna need about like one more episode to really wrap things up so...yay! Anyway, enjoy the thing you guys.**

Seeing as Kinofpumps and Morino had ducked to the left and right of the soon-to-be exploding car, Duck came to the...logical conclusion that he had to move back further away from the vehicle. Unfortunately his momentum moved him farther than he intended to and he ended up in front of a wall, away from the explosion thankfully but also away from any of his comrades.

Duck couldn't exactly see where they were but he had hoped that they were unharmed as well. Picking up his mannequin that had thankfully survived this whole ordeal he backed up against the wall and proceeded to fall backwards onto the concrete floor. It turns out the wall hadn't actually been a wall this whole time, just a very _very _convincing drape that covered something absolutely magical.

Duck got up from the floor dazed and confused, he looked around the dark room that only had one light. Which happened to be a giant spotlight. Hovering over something that made Duck's eyes light up like it was Christmas day.

He gasped, "I have the greatest idea ever! Come on buddy, we gotta save our friends!"

Duck didn't exactly know how to drive this vehicle, this shining beacon of hope and...fun, but he figured how hard it could be?

After all it was just a tank.

"Are you sure you guys don't want to help them out down there?" Elsa asked worriedly. The elevator was now slowly coming to a halt and so they'd have to be on their toes once the doors opened.

"I'm sure everyone else is going down to that warehouse as we speak." Hikari Oni reasoned, "Besides, in your condition you probably need more help than they do."

Elsa didn't even protest. She knew that was true and there was no way in hell she was going to be able to take down five floors worth of soldiers single-handedly. Even so it seemed like Kinofpumps was in a much dire situation than she was in right now.

"How, uh...how is a sniper rifle supposed to help us in close-quarters combat anyway?" Cupcakes asked. Which was actually a very good question. Sniper rifles don't exactly fare well at close range, at least not as well as any other standard rifle.

"Shut up." Hikari Oni retorted. She propped the rifle up with both hands and waited anxiously for the doors to open, "It's not like I expected to be scaling five floors anyway so-"

Her thought was interrupted as a ding rang through the car, signaling the end of their ascent. The doors opened and they were immediately greeted to the sight of three soldiers, all in a line, advancing on them in this hallway of sorts.

Elsa and Cupcakes unfortunately couldn't get their weapons raised in time to combat the troops but Hikari Oni did. Without giving it a second thought she raised her sniper rifle and pulled the trigger...downing all three soldiers with the same bullet.

There was silence as the trio stood there, jaws agape and eyes wide, trying to register what had just happened.

"D-did you just..." Cupcakes started. "Did you...what the fu...did that just happen?!"

Hikari Oni broke out into a wide and ecstatic grin, letting out a giddy laugh in the process, "Holy shit! I just did that! I just...wow! I can't believe...did you see that?! You saw that right?!"

Without thinking she had grabbed Elsa's shoulders and shook her out of excitement, completely forgetting about her injury.

"Ow! Fuck! Yes I saw that!" Elsa pushed herself off of the overly eager soldier and rubbed her sore shoulder. "Come on we gotta keep moving, there's no telling how many soldiers are on this floor alone."

And as if right on time, three more soldiers emerged, but this time Elsa was ready. She raised her pistol and pulled the trigger three times, watching as all three bodies dropped to the floor. "Come on, let's go!"

She ran down hallway after hallway with her other troops in tow looking for a staircase. Other soldiers impeded their path along the way but they were quickly disposed of. Cupcakes was a godawful shot, missing with nearly every bullet except for those few lucky ones that hit a hand or foot or shoulder, but if there was one thing he was good at it was avoiding being shot at. It was as if getting shot in the foot gave him some sort of sixth sense and he was able to dodge bullets left and right with great ease. Hikari Oni kept proving to be incredibly proficient with the sniper rifle. It didn't matter that she wasn't exactly in the right range for it, she was able to hit her mark no matter what distance it was at. It was baffling.

"How the fuck did you learn to shoot like that?" Cupcakes asked her after she had successfully picked off yet another soldier who had taken to hiding behind a large potted plant for some reason.

Another pull of the trigger and another dead soldier lay near them, "I have no fucking idea but this is awesome! It's like I was _born _to use this or something!"

Elsa, of course, had her skills to back her up. The specialist training had never really escaped her, even if she hadn't done much to hone them for the past three years. She was tactile and instinctive, true to her shot and cool under pressure. All that mattered right now was finding a staircase and getting to the top floor. Damn anyone that got in her way.

Finally she spotted it, a door with the familiar sign of a little man scaling a staircase. "Over here!" she ordered and they all made a mad dash towards the door. She burst through it using her good arm and spotted a couple soldiers descending the stairs above them. Hikari Oni past through the door as well and immediately raised her sniper rifle to make quick work of the soldiers.

Elsa stared at the private with a quizzical yet impressed look, "How the fuck..."

She shrugged, "I don't really think that matters right now though, does it?"

Cupcakes had taken to hanging out near the door frame and laying down some godawful supressive fire, "Uh...shouldn't we keep moving?"

"Right!" Elsa agreed, "Come on, let's get up there."

Hikari Oni followed and Cupcakes happily obliged as well but not before tossing a grenade into the room he had been shooting into, "Yeah bitches! I saved something for you!"

He backed away from the door and followed the two up the flight of stairs, grinning as he heard an explosion ring through the floor they were just in.

The warehouse was an absolute mess. Giant balls of flame housing wrecked vehicles were rampart and bullets ringed through the entire area, denting and piercing anything and everything. Forest green soldiers had littered the opening, pouring in car by car to stop the rainbow menace that had burst through the doors in order to save their friends.

They came in by the dozens and were subsequently dropped by that same number. No matter how many soldiers were thrown at these brothers (and technically sisters) in arms it didn't prove to be enough. They were downing them in such quick succession it was as if they had infinite ammo.

Unfortunately they didn't.

Jerome heard a mortifying click of his rifle, "Dammit I'm out!"

"Just grab a rifle off the floor, there are tons of them." Bubbles suggested.

"Fine, but someone's gonna have to cover me!"

Hal Jordan emerged at his side as he reloaded, "I've got your back."

Jerome nodded and dropped the empty rifle, rushing into the fray along with Hal Jordan to find a rifle. The green soldier covered his companion the best he could, taking down soldier after soldier as he looked for a rifle and subsequent ammo for it. Once he had found enough Jerome raised a thumb to Hal Jordan and nodded, moving back towards the group.

Or so they thought. To their dismay a pack of enemies had closed in the two, cutting them off from the rest of their friends. There didn't seem to be any way out except for the obvious. But they were outnumbered 5 to 1 so things didn't look too good.

One of the soldiers raised his gun, ready to shoot, but a glowing blue blade had burst out through his chest and immediately pulled out, dropping him to the floor. Behind him stood two faces they were both incredibly glad to see, an orange soldier wielding a bloody energy sword and another in black busy dropping the opposition around them like flies.

"Where the hell have you guys been?!" Hal Jordan asked with a smirk as he continued to shoot as well.

"Ah, you know. Just fucking around waiting for you assholes to bail us out." Kinofpumps replied, "But I guess _we're _not the ones that need saving right now, are we?"

Morino sliced through another couple soldiers with a sneer, "Will you both cut it with the stupid banter? We're sitting ducks out here, we need to regroup!"

"Morino's right. But that's looking to be easier said than done." Jerome said, and this was true. As they spoke more and more soldiers had begun to form around where they stood, the sound of a firefight had alerted the horde of their presence.

And so here they stood, the four soldiers who had spent way too much time stuck in a cave, fighting for their lives back to back. Shooting and cutting down anyone that dared get near them.

The rest of the soldiers weren't exactly fairing so well either. They were all running low on ammo as well and had hidden behind banged-up Warthogs. Things didn't look very good.

Bubbles grabbed a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin, releasing it without actually looking and hoping that it would land on something or someone. Unfortunately as he did so a soldier got a lucky shot in and pierced his hand, "Gah! Fuck! I'm hit!"

Harmy rushed to his side, "Hold on, I can patch you up." He grabbed a roll of bandages from his belt and went to work on bandaging the wound. "You might want to grab a pistol or something cause there's no way this is gonna heal quick enough for you to use a rifle."

Unbeknownst to the both of them soldiers had started to pour in from another side of the warehouse and had their sights set on the two crouched behind a Warthog. The sound of bullets piercing armor and skin filled the air.

Thankfully it wasn't Harmy's armor. Neither was it Bubble's. In fact the only armor that had just got bullet-ridden was their attackers'. Standing in front of the two kneeling soldiers stood their brown robotic savior, gun trained on the enemies closing in.

"Jag sa ju att jag skulle behöva den här pistolen en annan dag." (I told you I'd need this gun some other day.)

Miguel kept shooting and soon he was joined by Sergeant Anna and Spacecati, the three laid down covering fire, protecting the pacifist and the wounded.

"You almost good there Bubbles cause we could probably use your help." Spacecati said.

He looked at his bandaged hand and grimaced, "Well I mean if you had a pistol on you I could help you guys out."

Anna took a small break from pulling the trigger on her trusty shotgun to pull out a pistol from her belt, throwing it Bubble's general direction, "Use this. Snagged it off the first guy I killed. Nosy bastard. I figured it could be a nice trophy when this is all said and done."

Bubbles grabbed the pistol and scooted up off the concrete floor, raising the pistol and shooting any bit of forest green armor he could see.

Spacecati didn't exactly know which direction to fire in, the thick of them were coming in two directions, "Sergeant Anna, how long do we need to keep this up?!"

"As long as it takes." she stated bluntly as she cocked her shotgun for the millionth time that day. It seemed as if she had an endless supply of shells and , for their sake, hopefully she did.

"But at this rate-" Spacecati was interrupted by a click coming from his rifle, "Fuck! I'm out!"

Soon Miguel heard a similar click coming from his rifle and dropped it onto the floor, it was useless to him now. Thinking (or at least the robotic equivalent of thinking) for a few seconds in complete standstill silence he suddenly burst into..."life", running at the opposing force in front of him in a full sprint.

"Miguel, where are you going?!" Bubbles questioned before feeling a bullet just barely miss his ear, "Fuck that was close."

"Tacka mig senare!" (Thank me later!)

Miguel ran right into the sea of green and started to throw punches left and right, knocking back and knocking out everyone around him. The soldiers had finally gotten their bearings and immediately began to unload magazine and magazine into the robot, ripping and shredding into his armor plating and exposing wire after wire.

But this didn't stop him. No he continued to face these bastards head on, taking them down one by one and keeping their focus on him instead of his comrades.

His ongoing sacrifice didn't look like it would help much in the long run. The soldiers continued to advance inwards on everyone and they were running dangerously low on ammo. This seemed to be the end and all they could really wish for is that they had bought Elsa enough time.

A giant boom and an explosion that was just as grand echoed across the canyon, stopping every single soldier in their tracks...except for the ones that had just been blown up.

Giant treads crushed the vehicles in its path, reducing them to nothing more than metal and glass, a loud motor whirred intimidatingly and the large metal body towered over all the soldiers, signaling a change in landscape, a dramatic turning of the tables.

Running up five flights of stairs proved to be a much more daunting challenge than they expected. Elsa, even with all her training, found herself almost exhausted when they finally got to the final floor. She gripped the doorknob harshly as she tried to catch her breath before continuing.

There was panting coming from behind her along with slow trudging footsteps. She couldn't imagine what level of fatigue the two soldiers behind her were at.

"Are...are we...there yet?" Hikari Oni panted.

Elsa straightened herself up and peered through the glass pane of the door, trying to scout the are and see what they were going to be dealing with. "Just about." she replied.

"Oh...thank...goodness." Cupcakes slumped onto a wall and leaned all his weight onto it, shaky and out of breath.

This wasn't good. Fatigue didn't exactly help to instill more morale and motivation, and she needed these two to have both if they were going to survive this final test. She forced a smile, "Come on you guys...five flights of stairs is nothing! We're not _tired, _are we?"

"Yes we are!" Cupcakes groaned out almost immediately.

Hikari Oni frowned but she didn't exactly disagree. Too tired to say anything she went for the silent route, but flashed a smile in Elsa's direction to let her know that she understood what she was trying to do.

"Can we just have like...a minute...or five...to catch our breaths?" Cupcakes suggested.

If they had been in any different kind of scenario Elsa would have happily obliged but as it stood right now they didn't _have _any time to catch their breaths. In fact as they stood there more soldiers had started to pile in to the top floor. She heard a door open from below them and knew they were coming in from the bottom as well.

"No time for that." Elsa retorted as she opened the door, "We gotta move _now_!"

She raised her pistol, aiming it at head after head, and pulled the trigger. For such an important floor you would think that The Supervisor would station his best soldiers here but that wasn't the case at all. They dropped like flies under Elsa's feet and she stepped over them trying to find the bastard's door. It didn't seem very wise to interrupt Jerome during the firefight only to ask him a very simple question.

"Elsa!" she heard Hikari Oni cry out behind her. The two soldiers hadn't followed her into the floor and stayed around the staircase.

"What are you two doing?! We have to move!" she asked frustrated.

Cupcakes leaned over the railing and dropped a grenade downwards, backing away immediately. "No can do Elsa!"

An explosion engulfed the staircase below and the sound was deafening in such a closed space.

"We're gonna stay here and make sure no one gets up here!" Cupcakes continued.

"They're gonna keep coming up here, that's basically suicide." Elsa stated incredibly worried.

Hikari Oni shrugged, "We knew what we were getting ourselves into, Elsa. If the rest of us are down there raising hell then I'd say it's fair we raise a bit of hell ourselves." 

"But-"

"Don't argue with us, Elsa!" Hikari Oni grabbed the door handle and stared at her sergeant with a look that practically reversed their roles. As if Hikari Oni was now the sergeant giving an iron-clad order to her weary private. She sighed, "End this. For good."

Before Elsa could protest the doors were closed and she was left all alone in the middle of a pile of bodies. They were right though, she was the one that started this entire mission it was only fitting that she be the one to end it.

She stepped over the bodies beneath her and reloaded her pistol, starting her search for the man that had caused this whole mess in the first place.


	25. Episode 25

**Episode 25: Go Out with a Bang**

**A/N: Well this is it. The penultimate episode of PBC. After this there's only one more left and I seriously hope this doesn't disappoint because this took forever to write. I'd like to write more but I honestly don't know what else to write here. I'll make a giant note on the last episode but for now enjoy this one because there's only one more left!**

The large, menacing barrel of the tank swiveled slowly towards the enemy force who had stopped dead in their tracks, afraid to move even a muscle. Apart from the overall loudness of this colossal vehicle of death and destruction the entire warehouse was just eerily silent, to the point that it was unsettling.

It wasn't quiet for long though. In a fraction of a second the inside of the barrel erupted in a plume of fire, releasing a large shell that exploded on impact all around it, Warthog after Warthog were reduced to nothing more than burnt, bent metal and bodies practically disintegrated from the burning flame and shrapnel.

"Did you see that?! That was so awesome!" said the voice inside the tank.

Kinofpumps twitched a little as he heard the voice, "Wait a second...Duck?! What the fuck are you doing in there?"

"I don't know!" he cheerily stated, "I fell through a wall and found it!"

"You fell through a...you know what? It doesn't matter. Just get the fuck out of there!"

"Right! I should get out of here...hey, uh Kinofpumps?"

"What?!" he exclaimed exasperated.

"How do I get out of here?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?! You got yourself in there and you don't even know how to-" Kinofpumps was rudely interrupted by a bullet that just barely missed his cheek, "Shit! Duck if you're not gonna get out at least help us!"

"Right! I should help you guys!"

The red and blue soldiers scrambled for cover as the shooting continued, thankfully Duck was drawing most of the fire but even then the bullets flying over and past them were just way too much.

The four men that had split from the group were all crouched behind the same Warthog firing off the last few bullets they had.

Jerome reloaded his last magazine that he found and looked over at Kinofpumps, "Your friend Duck is a godsend by the way."

Another explosion caused Kinofpumps to flinch once more, "Don't be so sure about that. I mean...just _look _at him."

And look at him they did, and Jerome really regretted doing so. The shining beacon of relief that he held Duck to before was all but shattered as he saw the soldier struggle to move the tank...anywhere. The vehicle jerked and twitched back and forth, side to side and every other angle in between and only moved a couple inches in each direction. At some point Duck had managed to rotate the whole body in the other direction and yet keep the barrel itself trained in the opposite direction.

As the tank hilariously moved further and further away from the battlefield Duck could be heard exclaiming, "No wait Go back...why are there six pedals if there are only four directions?!"

Over on the main group who had splintered out as well in order to cover more area Bubbles had tried to stifle a laugh, "Oh my god we are so fucked."

"It's not over till it's over, Bubbles. Now keep shooting!" Anna chided as she unloaded another shell into the space in front of her. As much of a hindrance Duck was being right now there was no denying his impact to the battle so far. The shots that he had fired off erased a good number of their opposition.

"Fuck, I'm out of ammo for real now." Spacecati said in dismay. He looked towards the tank that had reapeatedly been driving into a wall, "Duck! We need you over here dammit!"

"What?!" Duck exclaimed frantically as he struggled with the controls. "Okay, uh...I'll be right there." He stared at all of the buttons and levers and pedals in front of him and bit his lip. "Let's see what _this _does."

With a press of a button the hatch above him opened, exposing him to the slightly muffled sound of bullets and bullets and even more bullets, "Hmm...no that's not it."

A press of a lever and the hatch closed above him and water sprayed the window in front of him, wipers emerged from somewhere on the front and wiped the water off, "Why are there windshield wipers on a tank?"

After a shake of his head Duck pressed another button and heard some sort of Spanish mariachi music come from the radio that was apparently inside here with him, "Well this is nice."

He decided not to press the button once more and tried something incredibly distracted. He gripped the handles in front of him and turned them sharply to the right while pressing down on a random pedal. The tank responded accordingly and turned itself to the right until he saw the battlefield once more.

"Oh hey, I did it! Now which one..." he looked down at the pedals once more as his finger slipped, pressing another button which luckily fired another shell, "...is the 'Go' pedal."

A press on a random pedal sent him shooting him backwards onto the wall, whipping his head back and forward onto the button that fired off yet another shell.

"Ow..." he whimpered. "So it's not _that _one." He looked back at the mannequin seated behind him, "What do you think buddy? Which pedal do you think it is?"

He was greeted with lifeless silence and he frowned, "Wait a second why am I even talking to you? You're a mannequin and everyone knows that mannequins give terrible advice."

Another press of a random pedal and suddenly he was shooting off straight into the firefight, crushing anything and everything in its way. "Gah! Wait! Slow down! How do I slow down?!"

Duck pressed all the buttons and levers in the tank, turning the radio and windshield wipers on and off, firing off shell after shell, flickering and dimming lights and opening the hatch so much to the point that it broke and gaped halfway open.

Hearing the growl of a motor approach getting closer and closer caused Spacecati to turn around and see the tank quickly approaching the trio. "Oh fuck look out!" he said as he pushed them all past the warpath of the machine.

Hal Jordan also saw the rampaging tank and couldn't help but grin, "Well gee it looks like he finally got the hang of it."

Morino lunged at a soldier that had gotten way too close for comfort, slashing him down, "Don't be so sure about that. He still doesn't look he knows what he's doing at all."

"Pssht I'm sure he's finally got the hang of..." stopped talking as he noticed a glowing blue ball stick onto the tank. Along with another one. And another one. And another one. "_Duck, get the fuck out of there!_"

He saw a blue helmet still stubbornly inside the tank as it crept closer and closer towards the thick of the enemies. The explosion was mortifying and expansive, covering a very large area of the front of the warehouse. The chances of anyone in the blast surviving were practically non-existent.

Hal Jordan collapsed onto his knees as he stared at the bright, vast flame in front of him.

Finding the door to The Supervisor's office proved to be a much easier task than Elsa first thought. After a mere five minutes of searching she found a door unlike all the others here.

While every other door on this floor, maybe even in the entire building was metal and gray with matching door handles these set of double doors were smooth and wooden, ornated with an intricate and beautiful design carefully carved into it. There was also a gold plaque set on the right side of the doors that just read "The Supervisor".

Elsa scoffed at the overall cheesiness of it.

She hovered her hand over the incredibly over the top golden door handle and noticed just how shaky her hand really was. Dammit she was nervous. After all this time, all the work they had put in, all the people they had to go through, she was just now letting the nerves get to her. This wasn't good at all, the last thing she needed when she opened this door was to be incredibly unsure as to what she was going to say, what she was going to do.

"Get it together, dammit!" she told herself.

After a couple of deep breaths and some time to herself to collect her jumbled thoughts Elsa felt ready. The bastard behind that door needed to pay. For everything.

And a polite turning off the door handle wouldn't exactly get her point across.

So with a bit of doing, and with an aching strain on her abdomen, Elsa raised her leg and forcefully kicked open the door, hearing a satisfying crack as the lock broke and smirking when she saw the surprised look on The Supervisor's face.

She lowered her foot and stormed into the room, immediately launching into her tirade. "Where is she?! Where is Sloth?! I know you know where she is you bastard so tell me!"

"Woah there calm down...Elsa, is it? Yes I remember your name." The Supervisor interruped, finally regaining his composure. "Sloth is fine...but you won't be."

"What?" Elsa heard feet shuffling behind her and quickly turned around just as a knife lunged forward towards her. The act of doing so though aggravated her stomach and she winced in pain, closing one eye instictively. The attacker saw their opening and aimed for the side of Elsa that had her eye closed. She knocked the hand away and raised her other hand to punch the hell out of this guy. But her other shoulder seized and chided her for aggravating it even more. She grabbed at it and unwillingly groaned, "Fuck!"

It was then that Elsa finally got a good look at the man with the knife and she recognized his snarled grin and arrogant composure, "Frazz..."

Frazz lunged at her injured shoulder with the knife once more and Elsa leaned away from it with ease. Her training was kicking in once more in a way that felt much different. It was as if she could detect his movements before they even happened and act accordingly. Another lunge and another expert dodge.

"Goddammit stay still!"

"Never! Now tell me where Frazz is!" Elsa demanded.

Dodging was easy, practically second nature, to Elsa right now but she knew it wouldn't be enough. At some point she'd need to go on the offensive to incapacitate Frazz but that looked to be impossible with only one arm.

Even so, she had to try.

After another unsuccessful jab Elsa raised her fist and swung at his head. Frazz didn't expect this and so his reaction was delayed and he felt the fist connect with the bridge of his nose.

"Argh, you bitch!" he said as he stepped back.

Elsa smirked as she curled her fingers back and forth towards Frazz. The universal sign to "bring it".

And bring it he did. Frazz's movements were now quick and jerky but still as cold and calculating as ever. It actually sort of took Elsa by surprise.

Frazz slashed at her throat and Elsa stepped back. She used her back foot to pivot and spun her front foot around to connect with his back and hunch him over. The move was successful but it hurt her as well and she gripped her stomach to ease the pain.

Unfortunately he had recovered quicker than anticipated and saw Elsa doubled over in pain. Seeing his opportunity he plunged his knife into Elsa's knee.

"AH!" she cried out in pain. The impact brought her down to one knee and she felt the same bloody knife press onto her neck. The conniving bastard had slinked around behind Elsa and looked down at her with a cheeky grin.

"My my, you've all made quite a mess now haven't you?" The Supervisor condescendingly stated. He got out of his chair and stepped slowly towards the pair, "You literally and figuratively kicked down my door and started to break everything I own. How do you think I would feel about this?"

He knelt down and gripped at Elsa's cheeks and jaw tightly, forcing her to stare at his foreboding scowl, "I think you should be punished. I think you should _all _be punished."

He let her jaw go with a forceful push, dropping her whole face down towards the floor and drawing a bit of blood from the knife on her neck.

"You and your friends have caused a _lot _of trouble. Destroyed a lot of my property. _Killed _some very good men. And some not so good, I will admit. But even so you will pay for your insubordination and your basic act of treason."

The man saw his reflection in the monitor and grinned as it sprung to life, "Now what should we do with you all?"

His hand waved back and forth across the screen and he tapped at the screen with such fury that Elsa believed he was gonna break it just by using his finger, "Let's see, there are actually tanks that I can control directly from this here console. I can have them on your friends in mere seconds. Ooh, or maybe I can just send every single goddamn specialist I have at my disposal on you sons of bitches. Or...oh hey did you know that I can send in an airstrike on them from here? You wanna see what happens if I try that?!"

The Supervisor's voice was so menacing and despicably eager that it worried Elsa. This wasn't exactly how she expected this to end, with a stab wound in her knee and her friends about to be utterly destroyed. This was all her fault and now...now what?

What could she honestly do right now? How could she fix this? She couldn't. Not when she only had one leg to stand on and one arm to fight with. And there was also that whole thing with the fucking knife on her throat. This was a hopeless situation and all Elsa could do was watch as The Supervisor chose their fate with the press of a button.

"Oh and as for Sloth..." He chuckled, "I'm sorry to say but you won't be seeing her a-"

The monitor suddenly groaned and bulged forward as screws came loose in quick succession, finally crashing back onto The Supervisor and shattering the window behind it.

Hal Jordan watched the flames dance mockingly before him, engulfing vehicles and enemies and...a friend.

The screams from those licked by the fire were pitiful and mortifying, screams of "Make it stop!" and basic cries of anguish all came together in some twisted, horrifying orchestra that played a tune he kept trying to drown out.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He knew that there was a chance they would lose _someone _but...not Duck. Anyone but Duck. His friend who probably didn't know the real gravity of the situation, who was so oblivious to how dangerous the mission was he spent his time getting set up painting a mannequin, a basic innocent bystander who drove himself into the middle of a firefight to lay his life down unknowingly and probably unwillingly.

"You fool." Hal Jordan muttered under his breath, "You stupid fool..."

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. Kinofpumps stood above him with solemn, weary eyes and an empathetic frown. There was a large cut on his right cheek just below his eye, probably from a bullet that grazed him. It was a battle scar, Hal Jordan was sure he'd have some too and they would probably hurt once the adrenaline wore off.

"Come on, you have to get up." Kinofpumps said.

Hal Jordan's fists and jaw clenched at those words and he swatted his comrade's arm away, "Don't fucking touch me!"

Kinofpumps flinched at the sudden outburst but wasn't surprised. He should have expected this kind of reaction after witnessing such a horrible tragedy. Even so he didn't give up and walked back towards his friend, putting that same hand on the same shoulder, "No, dammit come on. We have to get out of here."

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" Hal Jordan brutally exclaimed, "Of all the people that could have...why him?! Why did he have to sacrifice himself?! Why couldn't it have been one of us?!...why couldn't it have been me?"

That kind of thinking was toxic and Kinofpumps knew it. Strengthening his assertiveness he gripped onto Hal Jordan's arm and tried to lift him up, "Don't fucking think like that man. We knew something like this would happen, we knew the risks. He knew the risks...and he sacrificed himself so that we could live. He died a hero, and we will _never _forget that."

Hal Jordan couldn't fight back anymore, he was defeated and drained and so he got up from the concrete floor, "He didn't have to die..."

"I know he didn't but...what's done is done. He was a brave man and we'll always remember the sacrifice he made."

"Yeah I'm gonna miss him too."

That voice didn't belong to Kinofpumps. Or Hal Jordan. Or any of the other surviving members of their party. Well technically it _did..._but for the past few minutes this person hadn't actually been living. Or he _was _living this whole time but they just didn't know it or they didn't really check that well. But to be fair there was really no time to check and they were just having this deep emotional moment and...the voice belonged to Duck.

"Duck...what? Where have you...how did you..." Hal Jordan was having trouble finding the right words , or any words for that matter. This couldn't be happening right now. How was Duck alive?

"Duck...you're alive!" Kinofpumps exclaimed with this bright shining smile covering this confused stare in his eyes.

Duck stared at them as if he had never expected to be asked that question...ever. He looked down at himself and observed his fairly clean armor confused, "I...I think so?"

"But how?!"

"Ooh that's a good story, actually! See I saw this blue thingie on the tank and I remembered that it was a grenade and I only had a few seconds to get out. And then I saw another one. And another one. And another one... Anyway the door was already open so I pulled myself out of the tank and jumped out before the explosion. I think I sprained my ankle though it kinda hurts."

"But I saw a helmet in the tank and...who was..." Hal Jordan still couldn't make coherent sentences.

"Unfortunately I had to leave the mannequin in there." Duck sniffled and his voice whimpered, "I'll miss you buddy."

"That is just...holy shit, Duck. That was actually a smart move on your part. I'm impressed!" Kinofpumps complimented.

Duck rubbed the back of his neck as a slight, embarrassed blush fell on his cheeks, "You...you were?"

"Are you two quite done with this sappy little moment? Cause we need to get the hell out of here." Anna interrupted. She too had cuts on her cheek and her armor was a dented mess. Bullets had ripped through some of the underarmor beneath as well.

And she wasn't the only one.

There wasn't a soldier present who didn't at least have a single scratch on their body. Even Harmy, who didn't fire a single shot, had gotten a small cut on his arm. The most severe of injuries probably belonged to Miguel, who stood before tens of tens of tens of downed enemies all either clutching their faces or stomachs, unconscious or worse. He had been shredded to bits, his right arm was nothing more than exposed wires and a mangled fist with more than a few fingers missing. There wasn't even a discernable chest plate anymore and the only intact body part he had left was his helmet and even then there were bullet holes all over the visor. He twitched and made non-discernable noises as sparks flew all around him.

"Anna's right." Jerome said as he stepped out from behind the Warthog. "It's not safe here right now and I think we've done all we could. Soon they will regroup and this whole fight will start over again and..." he looked down at his empty rifle, "I don't think we're in any shape to fight right now."

Bubbles emerged from somewhere in the wreckage, clutching his bandaged hand, and walked next to Anna, "Well...where can we go?"

"I know where we can go." Spacecati added, "We can go back to that command center where those two other soldiers are. They can probably...well I mean they won't be able to help us but it's probably the most neutral place here right now."

"Hmm, you're probably right, Spacecati." Anna said, "Alright everyone let's get the hell out of here and back to the elevator!"

Everyone nodded and muttered their agreement and trudged their way back to where they had first entered. The walk back was one of tired and weary soldiers heading back from a terrible fight which was exactly what they were. Some leaned on another for support, others nursed the wounds they didn't actually know they had until now and some walked in silence, letting the day's events relay in their mind over and over again.

Everything was quiet except for the syncopated shuffling of feet as they all walked back together. In more ways than one.


	26. Episode 26

**Episode 26: Don't Say Goodbye**

Sloth didn't know how many floors she had climbed up so far, all she really did know was that her arms were really starting to hurt. Even with all her training, the act of climbing up windowsill after windowsill for what seemed like an hour wasn't exactly something she ever expected to do. In all honesty she had probably only been climbing for about 15 minutes and she still had more to go, the higher the floor reached the best her chances of not running into any opposition.

Her arms were starting to really ache though and she decided it would probably be best if she stopped at the next floor, regardless of whether or not there were soldiers she'd have to barge right through. That is, until she noticed a rather large window a couple floors above her. It was much larger than the rest and made of a fine, coarse wood lined with..gold? Why would you line a windowsill with gold? The windowframe itself had been framed with an elegant and flowy design that wasn't exactly practical. There was no way any light could come through the tiny slits in the design.

Sloth had a very good idea whose window that was and shook her head. Although this did bring up a very good opportunity. Chances are The Supervisor still didn't know she had escaped and if she was able to break in they could have a talk about her current situation. And if her fists decided they wanted to put in their two cents about this? Well Sloth wouldn't find it right to keep them out of the conversation.

A couple more heaves up and Sloth found herself hanging on the windowsill. The platform looked large enough for her to stand on so with one final pull up she had made her way onto the sill and stood with her back pressed to the window, trying not to look down. She heard grunting coming from inside and then a splintery crack. What the hell was going on in there?

A few more grunts and then finally she heard a heart-shattering scream resonate through the window that could only come from one person.

"Elsa!"

There was no doubt that the scream had come from her best friend and a switch flicked in her brain that sent her into a panic-filled rage. She needed to get in there and _fast._ Unfortunately there was no way to open the window from the outside. Trying to squeeze her fingers through the window proved to be a hopeless endeavor as well.

"DAMMIT!" she cried out, not caring whether or not anyone heard her. What could she _do?!_ How could she break in there and help her?! There was no way of opening the window, that much was established but...but what if she just broke in?

Without even questioning whether or not this was a good idea Sloth jumped up to grab the top part of the frame so that she was now hanging in front of the window. Using her legs she pushed off of the window and swung back and forth, building up enough momentum while holding on for dear life. Her fingers would give out at any second but she couldn't think about that right now. One final push and she kicked her legs out in front of her as hard as she could, immediately relieved when she felt the window give way.

The first thing she felt after the glass shattered wasn't the floor though, it sure felt like she had hit the floor but it too gave way with a loud groan and she found herself tumbling down onto The Supervisor's carpeted floor.

Glass was everywhere and at her feet was a large monitor that had fallen screen-first. Sparks crackled from the exposed wiring on the back panel and under the monitor itself lay on a familiar body.

"Sloth?" she heard two voices say from above her.

They were both familiar, yet one said it with sweet relief and surprise in her voice and the other said it with bitter disdain and exasperation in his voice. She heard another grunt as she gathered herself up off the floor and a sickening thud that shook the table she was using to help herself up. The entire room, all in all, took awhile of getting used to.

Sloth noticed she was pretty much the only person in the room standing right now. Crushed under his broken monitor was The Supervisor finally coming to after the unexpected shattering of his decorative window. The wooden desk had a splatter of blood on one of the corners and lying near one of the legs was a black-armored specialist. It was Frazz, Sloth was incredibly sure about that and the sight of him unconscious and not moving brought her some sort of sick joy. She would have smiled at the situation if it wasn't for the third body on the floor, clutching at a leg that had a puddle of blood underneath her.

"Elsa! Holy shit, what happened to you?" Sloth ran over to her friend and knelt above her, afraid to touch her and damage the woman that was already in such terrible condition.

Elsa laughed, "Oh it's nothing. Just a scratch..."

Sloth frowned, "Elsa this is no time to try and be a hero right now! You're hurt and you're hurt bad! Why...why did you do this?! Why did you come back for me? Why did you put yourself through all this? Why-"

"I never finished apologizing..." Elsa stated weakly. She knew that wasn't the whole answer but hopefully it would suffice for now.

All the sacrifice, all the pain that Elsa had to endure just to get here was downright amazing. The lengths her best friend had gone to save her caused Sloth to start crying right then and there.

"You stubborn fool." Sloth said shakily, "You could have been killed!"

"Hey, come on now..." Elsa reached out to touch Sloth's tear-stained cheek, "don't cry. I didn't come all the way here just to see you burst into tears like this."

Sloth smiled and rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, "I know it's just..."

Words were escaping her right now, for the life of her Sloth just could not find the right words to show Elsa her undying gratitude and also the worry and dread inside of her. She couldn't say any of that, but she could show it.

She moved in closer to her best friend and wrapped her up in a warm embrace, refusing to let go for even a second. She buried her face in Elsa's hopefully not injured shoulder and wet it with her tears, "You idiot..." she said softly.

Elsa used her good arm to pull her friend in tighter. "I know." she replied with the same tone.

The short, heartfelt moment was soon ruined by a frustrated groan and the crackling glass. It seemed that The Supervisor was finally regaining consciousness and there was no doubt that he was probably going to be _very _angry.

"Help me up, Sloth." Elsa asked.

Sloth silently obliged and hooked Elsa's arm over her shoulder and picked her up. They had each gotten up at relatively the same time which resulted in a tense, electrifying glare between both sides.

There was a pause in the room, a silence in which all you could hear was agitated breathing, until The Supervisor breathed out one harsh syllable, "_You..._"

Sloth intensified her glare, "It's over, _sir_..." she spat that last word out in disdain, "We are going to leave this place and there's nothing you can do about it. Not anymore."

The Supervisor let out an unsettling cackle, "Nothing, you say? I'll have you know that I don't need a monitor to maintain order in this place. Even _if _you leave who's to say that I won't send hundreds, _thousands_, of soldiers on you until you're finally dead?!"

The two girls didn't expect that kind of response. Would he really go to these kinds of lengths just to get some sort of petty revenge? Was he really that mad with power? Or was he just mad?

"You wouldn't..." Elsa replied.

"Oh? Don't be so sure. I will not _rest _until you two are dead! And then when you are I'll put your heads up on pikes for the whole world to see! So no one will know not to cross me!"

"You're insane." Elsa said bluntly, "You're fucking insane. Why would you sacrifice so many lives for such a stupid mission?!"

"Because I can!"

Elsa shook her head, "I didn't actually think I'd have to use this but...I see we're not gonna be able to solve this rationally."

She brought a hand up to her ear and pressed on it, "Hey Jeronimus...are you there?"

"Yes I am." a tired voice responded.

"Do you still have the detonator?"

A slight pause came from the other end before the voice crackled through the ear piece once more, "Yes we do. I gave it to Harmy during the battle."

"Good. As soon as I let you know I want you to press the button and bring down half this place."

She heard a chuckle, "Alright, we'll be waiting."

She released the button and grinned at The Supervisor who stared at her shocked and bewildered, "Wh-what was that?"

"_That _is Plan C. We planted explosives all over the reactor room and let me tell you, if those were to somehow...I don't know...become incapacitated...well I'm sure that wouldn't exactly a _good _thing, now would it?"

"You wouldn't!"

"Oh? Don't be sure..." she repeated back to him smugly, "If you let us be without trying to go after us with your thousands and thousands of soldiers, who will probably question such a heinous order by the way after seeing the absolute massacre that just happened here, then I won't blow up half of your precious headquarters."

"Oh you may be right about my soldiers questioning my orders but there's no way the specialists I have at hand will. They will do whatever I say without question because they've been trained to follow orders." He looked towards Sloth, "Something that obviously didn't come so easy to you."

She sneered at her boss, well...her former boss as of now, "Go to hell."

"If I tell them to hunt you down, they will. No questions asked. And one of _them_ is worth more than a _thousand _soldiers. So I'd suggest you think this through..."

He couldn't be bluffing about something like this. If there was one thing these two had learned in the span of about five minutes it's that The Supervisor wasn't afraid to say what he really felt about stuff. Chances are if they walked out of here there was no way they wouldn't be able live a rather calm life. Or rather, their friends wouldn't be able to live a rather calm life. And that was what truly mattered right now. Especially for Elsa. She had dragged them into this mission and forced them to lay their bodies in line, there was no way she could ask them to do that again and again and again.

Elsa sighed, "Fine...I'll make you a deal. You let us leave, go back to our base and I won't blow up your building. But in return...you don't sic your specialists on our friends."

Sloth looked at her friend strangely, "Elsa, what..."

She looked up towards Sloth and smiled at her, "It's okay, I've got this." She turned back towards The Supervisor, "You can send out any and every specialist you have on Sloth and I but I need to have your word that you will _never _lay a hand on our friends. That you won't send even a single soldier out on them. You let them be. They were never any part of this, this was all my fault. They don't have to suffer anymore for my mistakes." She took a deep breath before concluding, "That's my proposition. Take it or leave it."

There was another tense pause as they waited for The Supervisor's response. They seriously had no way of telling just how he would react because so far his responses had been very unpredictable. Thankfully though they didn't have to wait much longer.

The Supervisor closed his eyes and sighed before nodding, signaling his agreement to the deal.

**A Few Days Later**

"So remind me again why we're doing this?" Hikari Oni asked. She touched at the gnarly scar on her face and winced, the wound was still healing and it would take awhile to fully recover.

Duck limped back into the room holding an incredibly familiar plastic rectangular cover, "Because _ow _we never _ow _got a _ow _chance _ow _to watch it."

"Oh come on now Private Oni don't be like that." Hal Jordan said, adding the "Private" in there condescendingly.

"Shut up, Private Jordan." she fired back.

He giggled, "I deserved that."

"You guys are so cheeky and warm and lovely, it melts my heart." Morino stated sarcastically as he rolled his sore shoulder around.

Kinofpumps punched that same shoulder, earning a wince and a glare from the orange soldier, and laughed, "Hey now if you're gonna hang out in our base you don't get to talk to my comrades like that!"

"Well I wasn't the one that wanted to hang out in your base, now was I?!"

This was true. Once they had gotten back to the canyon Sergeant Anna had insisted on healing up in the Blue Base for reasons unknown to anyone but her. Maybe she knew they had more medical supplies, maybe she knew they had more comfortable beds than them which seemed highly unlikely, or maybe it's because even after all the shit they had been put through Anna still remembered of the deal that the two sergeants had made and wanted to get her end of it.

These were all very good reasons and the true reason would probably never be found...but it's a pretty safe bet that it was the last one.

Anna, meanwhile, had dragged one of the tables from the storage room and had set to work on rebuilding the badly damaged Miguel, who lay prone on the table still mumbling nonsense. "You guys wouldn't have any spare scrap metal just lying around now would you?"

"Not even a little bit." Hikari Oni replied.

"Damn..." she turned towards Spacecati who had been standing next to her hunched over the table, "Any chance you could head back to the base and pick up some?"

"Right now?" Spacecati asked, "But...the movie's about to start and I wouldn't even know where to look and-"

Anna rolled her eyes and sighed, "Alright fine we'll look for some after the movie you stinker."

"You know you could probably search through our magical storage room for some. There's no guarantee you'll see any but I mean it wouldn't hurt to look." Hal Jordan added.

"Ahem!" said Duck as he continued the process of getting the movie ready.

Hal Jordan sighed, "...if the Storage Room King deems you worthy." He always hated adding that part but it humored the guy and who was he to deny him this pointless moment of bliss?

"And I do! You may enter my fortress of solitude and take anything you may need!"

Bubbles face grimaced at the misuse of those words, "Fortress of solitude?"

"Just roll with it." Hal Jordan said next to him.

Bubbles shrugged and picked at his bandaged hand, "If you say so..."

Cupcakes meanwhile had been eagerly sitting at the edge of one of the beds waiting this whole time, "Ooh I can't _wait _for this movie to start! What's it called? What's it about? No, you know what? Don't tell me I want it to be a surprise!"

"Hey now, you weren't going to start without us now were you?" came a voice from outside the room. It was deep and rough but also sort of joyful in its tone. There was an excited shuffling of feet coming down the corridor and two eager men in regulation blue and red respectively barged right in.

"Holy shit this is so awesome!" Wiggum said looking down at the spray-painted red in complete bliss. He spun around excitedly, taking in this beautiful sight, "I can't believe it, I'm an actual _soldier_! This is the best fucking feeling."

Cid chuckled and crossed his arms over his newly painted blue chestplate, "Technically we didn't fill out _any _of the paperwork so we're not real soldiers. But you are right this does feel fucking amazing."

"Hey! I know this is a pretty tender moment for the both of you but could you move your asses? You're blocking the screen!" Morino stated and gestured the two "soldiers" away from the front of the room.

The two new faces frowned at the pushy hostility that this orange soldier (which wasn't really hostility at all it was just the way he acted) and moved away from the front of the room, sitting down on one of the other spare beds.

"So Jeronimus I have to ask..." Kinofpumps started, "why didn't _you _stay at the HQ like Harmy did?"

Jerome chuckled, "If you think I want any part in whatever ridiculous schemes The Supervisor has planned after what we did to his base, to his soldiers, then you're insane. Besides I see no reason to go back. Harmy wanted to go back to HQ because he wanted to keep broadening his knowledge of being a combat medic which I commend him for,he actually did a stellar job on patching up your Sergeant."

"Which reminds me..." Duck said as a cheerful melody played and snowflakes danced across the screen, "where _is _Elsa? She's gonna miss the whole thing."

They wouldn't have to look far to find the blue sergeant. Just outside the base, on top of the cliff the Blue Team had all been accustomed to, sat Elsa, nursing her wounds and looking out across the canyon. Her sniper rifle, which Hikari Oni had begrudgingly given back to her after the battle, lay prone on the dirt floor that she was sitting on. Her eyes were baggy and her face slumped down due to the fact that she hadn't slept in days. No matter how hard she tried she just could _not _go to sleep. Was it nerves? Was she anxious? Was she scared? Was it all three? Probably.

She looked down at her injured leg and pressed on it which was a terrible die. The contact made her hiss and almost howl in pain. The wound was still very fresh and it wasn't exactly something that would heal in a few days but Elsa being Elsa she wanted to be the stubborn one and leave as soon as possible. Fortunately Sloth, who was sitting right next to her on the cliff, was able to talk her into resting up for at least a few days.

"Are you sure you want to leave _now_?" Sloth asked her, "We still have time to rest up and I don't think you won't be able to get very far with your bad leg. I'm just trying to look out for you, is all."

Elsa turned to her best friend and smiled, "I'm fine, Sloth. Besides the sooner we can head out the more ground we can put between us and those specialists."

Sloth sighed, "I know...but it's just..."

Elsa leaned forward and gripped onto Sloth's hand on the dirt floor below them, "Hey, it's alright. I'm gonna be okay." She looked at her best friend and tried to convey some honest look of comforting reassurance but it was hard seeing as she'd never had to reassure, well, _anyone _before. So instead she tried to change the subject, "You have the grenade right?"

Sloth saw right through her and noticed how she was trying to change the subject but being the good friend she was she decided to let it go. She reached behind her to pull out a silver orb from her belt, "Yes I do. It was a nice going away present from our dear old friend, Frazz."

Elsa chuckled, "It sure was."

"You know I never asked, how were you able to beat him?"

"Oh, well you see after you barged into the room to save my ass he got distracted and loosened his grip on me. So I took advantage of the situation, ducked down and pushed him forward. It was honestly just pure luck that the table was so close to us. That whole fight boiled down to pure luck, really."

"Hey don't sell yourself so short. You were handicapped from the beginning and yet you were still able to kick his ass. You're an amazing fighter."

Elsa sighed, "I really hope so. I mean I can't let you do all the work once the fights start breaking out."

"Well I'm sure we won't have to worry about that for awhile."

"Hopefully not." Elsa replied. She scooted up towards the rocky wall behind her and tried to lift herself up, "We should probably get going."

Sloth hastily stood up and reached out for her friend, "Here, let me help you." Luckily Elsa didn't protest at all and hooked her arm over Sloth's shoulder, letting the woman help to pick her up off the floor. Once she steadied herself Elsa took one last look at the base she had called home for so long.

"You know, it's actually kinda hard to say goodbye to this place. I mean yeah sure it's boring and dreary and there aren't any redeemable qualities about this place minus...the tree I guess. But still, this place was my home. It's where I lived for the past three years and like it or not I've...actually had some pretty damn good memories here. Not the canyon, mind you, but more with the people themselves. I guess it's just hard to let this all go and move on, you know? I'd hate to leave without at least telling them _something_. They deserve a goodbye, at least."

"Can I make a suggestion? Don't say goodbye."

Elsa stared at her quizzically, "What? Why not?"

"My mother used to always tell me something-have I ever mentioned my mother to you?"

She thought back to any past conversations they had had, which was hard to do since they had been so long ago, but the subject of Sloth's mother was drawing a blank, "No I...I can't say you have."

"Well she wasn't around a lot when I was a kid. And when she was she couldn't stay for too long. It seemed like she always had somewhere to go, something important to do. And when she left she...wouldn't say goodbye to me. Instead she would say: 'Never say goodbye. If you don't say goodbye then...you aren't really gone. You just aren't here right now.'"

Elsa let those words sink in, really cherishing every single bit of it, and stood there practically in awe at how true those words really were. "Wow, I wish I had a mother who would have said that kind of stuff to _me. _She sounds like a really smart lady, Sloth."

Sloth looked down at Elsa's pondering frown, "Wait...you never knew your mother?"

She shook her head, "My father said she left when I was _really _little and so I never got to know her. And he would never really tell me much about her aside from the fact that she was a soldier and so I always thought, you know, maybe if _I _became a soldier I could finally find out who my mother really was."

"Why did you never tell me this?"

Elsa shrugged the best she could, "I just...it was never brought up, I guess."

"Well if it's any consolation I never knew my _father_. So I guess I can kind of relate."

Elsa smiled up at her best friend and it finally dawned on her that this was...the end. Well not exactly the end but this felt like a final chapter of sorts, the last few pages of a book she never wanted to start in the first place and one she didn't exactly want to finish either. At least not anymore. She never could have expected this entire chain of events, the twists and turns, the bumps along the way, the good times and the bad. Everything was unexpected. But she had to ask herself, knowing what she knew now, if given the chance to start over would she change anything? Her answer was a brash and definitive absolutely fucking not.

Elsa would go through every single heartbreaking moment, every exasperating day as a sergeant to lazy, insubordinate privates, every slap, every single bout of emotional turmoil...and every single bit of pain inflicted on her. Because for one she didn't like to tempt fate and time like that by altering even one small detail because who knows what would happen? And also she was a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. She needed to take all those hits, physically and emotionally, to get to the end of this journey. She was battered, bruised and felt like shit all over but she was with her best friend in the whole world and they would finally have time to mend the tattered shreds of friendship that they had left. This wasn't gonna be easy, not by a longshot, but she wouldn't have had it any other way.

"So...are you finally ready to go?" Sloth asked her.

Elsa nodded without a moment of hesitation and watched as the grenade dropped onto the floor, bursting out into a shining green doorway. They walked into the light together and disappeared through to the other side.

Duck had eagerly made his way out of the base and looked around the base excitedly, "Elsa! Hey Elsa, are you out here? We're about to watch that movie again! You know the one with that woman that looks like you and that you totally want to marry?! Yeah, that one!"

His ecstatic cries were met with nothing more than the sound of a faint echo that rang across the canyon.

"Elsa?" he asked one more time in a softer tone.

Hikari Oni emerged from the inside of the base as well and stood next to him, "Hey Duck, did you find Elsa."

"No, I...I didn't find her." he sighed.

"Well where do you think she is?"

"I don't know...somewhere." He took one last glance up at the cliff before turning back around. "She's just not here right now."

The two soldiers walked back to their comrades, their friends, who were waiting on them that whole time.

On top of the cliff lay an abandoned sniper rifle. The metal gleamed from the light and it lay still even as the wind howled around it. Soon it was nothing more than a piece of the land, blending in with the rocks and grass and dirt and...more rocks, as well as that one, lone tree. That one little part of the land that broke the symmetry of the area but in a good way. A nice way.

The sun shone over the box canyon, illuminating both bases that lay on opposite ends of it.

**The End**

**A/N: Well, it's finally fucking over. And let me tell you it has been one hell of a ride. I know I say this a lot but it was such an amazing joy writing every single bit of this fanfic. I've had an absolute blast writing sentence after sentence but even so I'm not gonna lie. This was pretty damn stressful to put out. Especially when I used to crank these fuckers out daily. I found myself burned out of writing more than a couple times but I still pushed through because I hate it when writers crap out on stories that they've already invested so much time in. Alright now here's where I get all sappy and shit.**

_**Ahem**_**. I want to thank each and every single person who has taken the time to read this fic. You didn't have to and the fact that you did just makes every episode I put out worthwhile. Special thanks to anyone that reviewed because it's a nice reassurance that the work I put in this thing is actually appreciated and your kind words have helped keep me going. Thank you to the people who signed up to be in this fic (if you're still reading), hopefully I wrote your character in a way that's adequate. **

**Like I said, if you want me to continue PBC just let me know. But just know that if I actually do get pestered into keeping it going there's no guarantees that I'll put anything out for awhile. With school starting and all I just don't have the time to invest all of my time into fanfic writing, which sucks.**

**Once again, thank you all for reading. Thank you for sticking around and hey if you want you can read my other stuff. They're...decent. Hopefully.**


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